


So I Lied

by Ragazza_Guasto



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Bisexual John, Bottom John, Boxing & Fisticuffs, Case Fic, Cuddles, Demisexual Sherlock, Drinking, F/M, First Kiss, First Time Blow Jobs, Happy Ending, Homophobic Language, Humor, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Manipulative Sherlock, Masturbation, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Recreational Drug Use, References to Drugs, Sherlock is a Mess, Slut!John, Smut, Topping from the Bottom, Tutor Sherlock, Unsafe Sex, switch POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 04:54:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 72,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3314762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ragazza_Guasto/pseuds/Ragazza_Guasto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John meet coincidentally at a party and find themselves doing the previously unthinkable. They part ways anonymously, both coming to find it's for the best. But a second chance encounter gives them the opportunity to resume the explosive possibilities. Do they take it? No. No, they don't.<br/>At least, not right away. They've got some hoops to jump through first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Poison & Wine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cupidsbowkisses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupidsbowkisses/gifts).



> For ma petite chérie [Lydia](http://cupidsbowkisses.tumblr.com/) because she deserves it and Uni!Lock is her jam. Also, Happy late Birthday! :D  
> Shout out to my wonderful Beta's [pringlesaremydivision](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pringlesaremydivision) and [superblue](http://archiveofourown.org/users/superblue/pseuds/superblue) for their amazing help and encouragement. As always, ladies, you rock my world and I would be nothing without the continued support.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John finds his relationship has crumbled and, being a Uni student, his first instinct is to get pissed. The plan goes off without a hitch, until he literally falls into bed with a mysterious bloke with a serious case of snogable lips in need of snogging. John thereunto has no self control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What it says on the tin. Suck a dick'll help you.

_This isn’t happening. This is not happening._

But it was. No matter how long John stood there blinking at the sofa, his girlfriend was still going for the gold in the Snog Olympics with her ‘just good friend’ David Hodges. They hadn’t heard his entrance, not with the absolutely terrible snog music playing on full blast on her stereo. It should have been obvious, John standing there in her doorway, but that's how wrapped up in each other they were.

John’s eyebrows rose when David snaked a hand up under her jumper.

_Right, that’s enough of that._

He opened his mouth to put an end to the snog session right then, but something in the way David’s tree trunk arm bunched as he massaged Mary's breast halted John’s intent in its tracks.

Like the coward John had never thought he was, he turned and left without saying a word. He rationalized this by reminding himself that David was a chunky hooker and John was a three quarter full back.  He could be counted on to be cool under pressure and aim true without fail; not so much the tackling and pummeling. And rugby rules did not apply when doling out pain to cuckolded fools such as himself. It was a strategic retreat.

He backed out into the hall on silent feet and fumed. A plan, he needed a plan.

He grabbed the nearest person- bloke named Simon he was pretty sure, didn't matter- and growled, “Point me in the direction of the largest volume of alcohol in this building.”

“What?” He squeaked in reply, fidgeting in John’s grasp.

“Party,” he snapped, “where’s the nearest party?”

“N-n-nelson’s,” Possibly Simon stuttered back. “Colby Nelson is throwing one down on the fourth.”

“Ta, mate,” John absently replied as he shoved the kid away. He managed to make it to the stairwell and down the two flights to the fourth without accosting anyone else.

The party wasn’t hard to find; it had spilled out into the hall, with several people milling about, drinks in hand. Raucous conversation and heavy bass beats filled the air as he neared. He shoved his way inside without care and marched to the nearest source of booze.

“Hey,” some random bloke cried out when John snatched his shot and downed it. He continued on toward a red plastic cooler and grabbed the first can his hand touched. He cracked it open and downed it in one go. The bloke started to walk towards him but one look from John, as he wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, turned the kid round again.

“What I thought,” John muttered.

“Watson!” A voice called out in surprise.

John turned and gave a nod to Mike Stamford, his dorm neighbor, as he approached. He watched as Mike’s smile faded upon seeing John’s murderous face.

“John, what happened?”

“Mary happened. Mary and David Hodges happened. _Is_ happening.” He pointed up.

“Oh,” Mike responded, clearly at a loss on how to proceed. “Um, care for something stronger?” He asked with a nod to John’s second beer.

“Oh, yeah. Give me something strong enough to destroy the important parts of my brain,” he commanded.

Mike threw an arm over his shoulders and pulled him along with a laugh.

They eventually ended up squeezed onto a sofa together, next to two burn-outs and a girl who was doing not that great a job of not crying.

“So it’s really over, you think?” Mike asked.

“Course,” John snapped. “She’s riding David Hodges, that’s kind of a deal breaker.”

Mike nodded. “Just checking.”

“Why?” John turned towards him, wrath and alcohol making him mean. “You want a go after David’s done?”

Mike went red. “No! Are you mental? No, I was just checking before I open my big mouth and piss you off.”

“About what? She been shagging behind my back this whole time? What haven’t you told me?”

“Nothing like that. Least not that I know of. It’s just that, I never would have said it before, mate, but I never liked Mary. She was always trying to tell everyone what was what. Always came off a little bit holier than thou, if you know what I mean.”

John sat back against the sofa, deflated and drained. “She didn’t used to be like that,” he mumbled. He’d lost feeling in his lower jaw about four shots ago and his stomach was roiling in protest of the last one.

“It’s for the best, I’m sure,” Mike muttered in vague reassurance. “Enough about you, I’ve got problems of my own, you know.”

“Yeah?” John asked because it was expected of him. His eyes wandered the room in search of the loo.

“I’m failing Chemistry and Wickum stuck me with the worse tutor possible. Holmes makes every University Challenge team combined look like a bunch of infants. _And_ he’s not afraid to let you know it. He’d be near insufferable if it weren’t for the fact that he’s actually a good tutor.”

The noise of the room was getting to John. The bass from the stereo seemed to be churning the liquid in his stomach into a giant tidal wave of promised revenge. He slapped a hand out at Mike and grumbled, “I need somewhere to chill out.”

“You gonna get sick?” He asked and leant away, wary.

“Not sure. I just need somewhere to rest my head until everything stops spinning.”

“I could walk you back to your room.”

John shook his head. “I’ll never make it.”

“Right. Okay, bedroom then. Colby's called off limits for couples but I think she’d be okay with you crashing. I mean, as long as you don’t get sick on her bed,” he amended

“I’ll do my best,” he offered as Mike helped him off the couch. They stumbled- Mike was hardly better off than he was- and crashed noisily into the bedroom, both trying not to knock the other down in the process. A couple was already in attendance, it seemed, when they got the door open. They sped past in a rush and John fell against the wall in a huff. Mike giggled with that scandalized innocence he still seemed to have. Without further thought, John stumbled forward on unsteady legs and fell face first into the pile of coats on the bed.

“You gonna be all right here, mate?” Mike asked.

“Unnf,” John answered, face buried in a sweet-smelling Burberry wool affair.

“Right, I’ll check on you later then.” He waited briefly for a response that didn’t come. He closed the door behind him; leaving John in blessed dark and semi-silence.

John groaned into the coat beneath him. He should have known better, but once again Mary had gotten the better of him. All he had to show for his troubles was a nasty case of actual heartburn and a coming hangover. Judging by the way he felt currently, it was going to make a cleaver to the skull feel like a forehead kiss from his mum.

“Fucking Mary,” he growled. “Fuck everyone named Mary to be honest. They’re all slags. Every last one of ‘em.”

“Mythically speaking that would be inaccurate.”

“Ah!” John bolted up when the pile of coats rumbled back at him.

A bloke emerged from underneath the pile; deceptively too young, pale, and skinny to be the owner of such a voice. He pulled a green cardigan off his shoulder and looked John up and down with clear disdain.

“Also a bit rude, isn’t it? Calling someone a slag. Especially if they’re not here to defend themselves.”

John swallowed. Guilt swam up and bit him but he couldn’t be sure if it was in actual remorse for what he’d said or just the fact that he’d been caught.

“I… I didn’t mean it.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Okay, I did, but not _all_ Mary’s.”

“Just _your_ Mary then.”

“I suppose,” John drawled in distraction.  

He looked the kid over again. He didn’t even look old enough to be in Uni in the first place. His soft curls framed his face like Cabanal’s Fallen Angel, his high cheekbones spoke of posh boarding schools and summers in Bath, his lips…

“Wait," John straightened his spine, "what are you doing in here? Were you just hiding under the coats while two people got off right there?”

“Same as you, I imagine,” he answered, ignoring the second part completely. “I abhor humanity in general and the musical styling left much to be desired.”

“Parties tend to have plenty of both.”

“Yes, well, I don’t believe I was in my right frame of mind when I agreed to this little field trip.” His lips snapped the ‘P’ with precision.

John looked him over again with a different eye. The kid definitely looked pale but that could be normal for all John knew; it was hard to tell with the subpar lighting coming from under the door. He didn’t seem to be drunk but drinking wasn’t the only way to find oblivion.

“You’re stoned?”

“To use the colloquialism. I suppose.”

Christ, the kid was a snob. “Pills?” He certainly wasn’t smoking weed. Much too put together for that.

His answering snort was answer enough. “Pedestrian,” he replied anyway.

“Sorry I asked.” John settled more firmly on the bed. It would have been best just to leave but his body didn’t seem ready to cooperate just yet.  And the mystery in front of him was keeping his mind somewhat occupied, so that was a boon.

“It’s an experimental cocktail of drugs ensured to ‘show me a good time’. Or so he said.” He thumbed his nose casually but it was enough of a hint that it made John’s stomach drop. This kid was messing around with real shit.

“Who said? The dealer?”

“Yes. Mate of a mate situation. Said his name was Wiggy but it was probably Billy or Phil or something equality innocuous.”

“You snorted something you got from someone named Wiggy?” John asked slowly, incredulous.

“Mmm, yes, that’s what I said. Think it was cut with ecstasy. No, I’m sure of it. These coats do feel amazing.” He listed to the side and twisted his arms further into the pile of outerwear. John stared in unabashed curiosity. He’d never actually seen someone on ecstasy, outside of films. It was a bit like watching a cat on catnip. The kid had a certain kind of grace that was mesmerizing.

“You should probably go to hospital,” John mumbled absently. “Lord knows what else that stuff was laced with.”

“But I feel fantastic.” He rolled back up and blinked his light colored eyes at John. “D’you want to kiss me?”

John blinked back, unable to process the words at first. “What?”

“Snogging, necking, making out, smooching, tonsil hockey, _embrasser_.”

John continued to stare, his head rocking back and forth in confusion. “No.” Christ, he didn’t even sound sure.

The kid pouted. “But you ruined my study of human nature, specifically that of embracing. Seems to me you should right a wrong when you’re able.”

“But… you were just creeping under the coats while they went at it next to you… that’s not exactly a scientific study.”

He nodded with wide, innocent eyes. “It was, until you ruined it. Are you going to make it up to me or not?”

“No!” John shouted, louder than was warranted.

The kid stared, looked John up and down with strangely sober eyes, and pursed his inappropriately full lips.

“You’re secretly relieved by your girlfriend cheating. You were waiting on a better excuse than the issues you were already having to break it off. What was it? She pressured you to change majors even though you just started Uni? Yes. You were pre-med. Strange, her not being satisfied with that…  Ah, she wanted a political figure for a husband. Didn’t believe you could pull off being a doctor. Made you switch to poli-sci with her so she could groom you for office. With the added bonus of keeping a closer eye on you so she could pursue her much larger, meatier side project; one of your rugby teammates if I’m not mistaken. Tsk tsk. You’ll be feeling the sting of that for a while. At least if he were smaller you could have cracked his skull, am I right? ”

John gaped like a fish. “How?”

He gave a bored shrug. “I told you, I make a study of human behavior.”

“Amazing,” John breathed without thought.

The kid looked back, shy. “Really? You think so?”

“Of course. That was like a magic trick. Wait, did Mike put you up to that?”

He rolled his eyes. “How could he have? You’ve been with him since you found out. When would he have found time to let me in on it?”

“Oh yeah,” John conceded. “That really is… just incredible.”

The kid looked down at his hand as it continued to caress a woman’s fur lined wool coat. “It’s nothing,” he mumbled. “Any idiot with eyes in his head could do the same.”

“Hardly,” John snorted. “I know I couldn’t.”

The kid gave him a ‘well?’ look and instead of being put off, John laughed. He received a small smile in reply.

“Did I get anything wrong?” He asked shyly, glancing up from under his fringe.

“Mary was getting off with a bloke on my rugby team. _Huge_ David is; meaty you could say.” The kid nodded sagely. “She had finally pressured me into switching majors, just last week in fact.” He received a grin for that. “Poli-sci, right again. I was to be the next Prime Minister.”

“No. You wouldn’t have even made it to MP before you quit. You would have run off to become a dog walker in New Zealand or something equally ridiculous.” John laughed at that. “Glad to see this concoction of drugs hasn’t dimmed my ability to read people. Could be sharpening them if anything.”

“I don’t know about that. You were off on one point.”

“What?” He sat up straight, affronted.

“My parents wanted me to go pre-med. I almost did but… I went with Creative Writing.”

The kid wrinkled his nose. “Can’t imagine you’re any good at that. Too romantic. I bet your work drips Keats and Wordsworth.” John smiled at that. “No, drop the poli-sci, go into pre-med. You listened to your inane girlfriend when she said you couldn’t do it. You shouldn’t have. Medicine would serve you well.” He gave a nod in decision.

“You're so strange,” John noted aloud. The kid nodded in agreement as if this were common knowledge. John decided then, “I like you.”

The look John received was the same he supposed ailing elderly pets gave new owners. Cautious, hopeful, but still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“So… do you want to get off now or…?”

John laughed out loud at the quiet offer. “I’m not going to get off with you. You’re high as a kite and too bloody young.”

“I’m eighteen and in a sight better shape than some people,” he snapped, eyeing John significantly.

Eighteen? John, himself, was only twenty-one, not much older, but the kid looked about as experienced as a Year Ten, which was what counted. “Really? I don’t believe you.”

“Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my wallet, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.”

“All right,” he replied slowly, still unsure.

“Look, if you’re not willing to kiss me, even though it's obvious you're up for it and would love a chance to get one over on your ex,” he stated with a sneer, “I’ll just go find Victor and be on my way.”

“Now hold on,” John snapped. Barring the fact that this kid could see his reluctant interest, “Who the bloody hell is Victor?”

He sat back down from his attempt at standing. “Just a… an acquaintance. But he’s malleable and you’re apparently not so if you’ll excuse me-“

On instinct, John snatched him by his wrist. It turned out to be quite fragile under his layers. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

He looked down at John’s hand with - not surprise exactly. Curiosity, more like. He studied it like one would a new breed of snake.

“ _Let_ me?” He queried after a beat.

“You’re high and you’re looking for sex with a possibly unwilling partner. It’s unconscionable.”

He smiled in delight, which was both beautiful and disturbing. It transformed his face from near childlike to what would be bloody devastating in a few years; as if it wasn’t already.

“How lovely. A noble soul as well. You are a wonder.”

With absolutely no thought on John’s part he snapped, “Look, I’m pissed, I’m angry and I’m horny, so why don’t you just shut up and finish your damn experiment already.”

His eyes widened at that. “ _Really?_ ”

The kid looked like he didn’t believe him, so John proved his willingness by snatching the bloke by the front of his hooded zip-up and mashed their lips together in an intoxicated mess. It took some doing, but they found a rhythm that went from exploratory to heated to predatory in quick succession. John pushed and pulled until the boy was flat on his back on top of the coats. They were laying the wrong way in the bed but John couldn’t care less. Any apprehension John might have felt went out the window as soon as those full lips met his thin ones. His enthusiasm seemed to gain traction by the second.

“Mmm, this is much better than previous experiments,” the kid mumbled into John's mouth.

“Yeah?” John breathed, his tongue mostly occupied with other things - namely tracing the veins under the bloke’s tongue.

“Could be the ecstasy though,” he mused.

John growled. “Can ecstasy do this?” He asked and moved down to latch onto that long neck. He sucked hard, carded his hands into those dark curls and tugged just hard enough to tease.

“No,” he breathed in answer. “Oh, that’s lovely.” His hands ran up under John’s shirt and he raked his nails up and down sensitive skin.

John hissed in pleasure and annoyance both. “Lovely? Is that all? How about this? Is this _lovely_?” John palmed the ridged outline of his partner’s erection. His reaction was textbook but also like nothing John had ever seen. His back bowed, showcasing his long torso and, as the two sides of his unzipped hoodie had fallen open, the strained buttons of his shirt underneath. His fingers dug into John’s muscled back, held on as if letting go was a death sentence. His hips tilted forward, forcing himself harder into John’s grasp. And his voice… Christ.

“Yes. Oh, please. Oh, please,” he begged, louder and louder.

John traced, kneaded and caressed until he was so hard it was like palming steel.

“All this and I haven’t even touched skin yet,” John noted.

“Oh,” he whispered. “Would you? I’d be so grateful.”

John laughed into the crook of his neck.

“So proper. Or it would be if you didn’t sound as breathy as a porn star.” John laid a few wet kisses against his already damp skin and slowly worked the zip down. John's hand snaked into the opening with care as the dark trousers were so tight it was near impossible to get inside without fighting. Once he got the trousers and boxer briefs out of the way and got his hand around hot flesh they both groaned in satisfaction.

“Fuck,” the bloke growled and thrust up.

Hearing the sudden curse was like lightning in John’s gut. He rolled further on top, pressed his cock against one long thigh and used his free hand to tilt his friend's chin down so he could bury his tongue back into that wonderland of wicked idiosyncrasies. John was near on fire with lust. Recent memory, what little remained, couldn’t conjure a time when he’d gotten so worked up, so fast. It might have something to do with the responsive creature in his grasp. John sincerely hoped it wasn’t the ecstasy that had him writhing and swearing, grabbing and pulling, breathing hotly into John’s mouth.

“With just my hand,” he mused next, teasing, feeling bold. “What would you do if I used my mouth, I wonder?”

His friend sucked in a shocked breath; John could feel the sudden dip in his stomach as his diaphragm contracted. He then gripped John’s hand in a tight vice, stopping his movement instantly. Their eyes met, John feeling unsure until he took in the pleading look.

Hell, he couldn’t _not_ suck him off now. Mind, he’d never given so much as a hand job before that moment, let alone a blow job, but if the deftness he was showing with his hand was anything to go by, it wouldn’t last long at all if he laid his tongue against that sensitive tip. And he very much wanted to see this bloke’s reaction.

Right, he’d have to remember to get the kid’s name after they were done.

Without breaking eye contact, John slid down, half on the bed, half off, and happily watched as the recipient looked down in wonder.

_Be gentle, start slow, figure it out as you go, John. Don’t get too enthusiastic and ruin the whole thing like Brena Cook did in Year Ten._

He studied his quarry before proceeding. John had never made a study of the human penis, other than his own of course, but he had to admit, this one was quite something. Not quite as… impressive… as his own, but still…beautiful, actually.

He gently slid the foreskin back to reveal an already shining head, perfectly shaped and begging to be explored. John smirked at the little abortive thrusts the hips in his grasp made. He moved forward, eyes back up to make sure his friend was still watching, and started off with a curious swipe of his tongue, just around the crown, to discover the taste. Not bad, as expected; salty like sweat but with a nice musky earthiness to it. Quite satisfying, John had to admit. Especially since the recipient’s reaction was one to remember. He lost eye contact when they rolled back and both hands came up to fist his own dark curls. John had to put both hand to his slim hips to keep him from rocking forward too fast. John chuckled a bit but went back down, this time with moistened lips wrapped clear around the head, and sucked. It felt good, even more satisfying than his initial quick taste; a perfect fit. He tested how far down he could take him- about halfway without issue. The rest would be a challenge but he was nothing if not adventurous. John held his breath and forced the gorgeous stranger’s cock further down the back of his throat.

“ _Oui, s’il te plait, continue_ ,” he rambled above John.

John popped up. “Huh. You know French?”

“What?” He snapped breathless and confused.

“You were babbling in French. Were you not aware?”

“No... I… I apologize. Spent my summers in Toulon.” He looked down in a silent plea to proceed.

“’Summers in Toulon,’” John mimicked. “Not even Bath, fucking summers in France. Christ.” He shut up and went back to deep throating.

He was getting quite good at it, if he did say so himself. It was always a good sign when a girl started, to use the crass term, _riding your face_ and if this was the male equivalent, John was a born natural. He was hard pressed to keep his new mate’s hips still beneath his grasp. For the most part he just held on. Without thinking, John snaked a hand underneath and was pleasantly surprised to find a bounty of a backside. He hummed in delight as he went hands-free and used both get two handfuls of delicious arse. The writhing quickened, each hip snap popping the head of his cock in and out from between John’s lips with a satisfying drag. Oh, he knew this feeling, knew the daze this must be sending his new friend into.

John growled in satisfaction when the whimpers turned to shocked gasps and John braced himself for the inevitable aftermath, as hot flesh swelled and pulsed against his tongue. He was more than up for the challenge and he swore to swallow it all down when it came.

A wicked sort of pride lit his skin with electric current when a cry escaped and two hands came down to grip his hair, hard. John sucked harder and let the warm gush hit the back of his throat with minimal effort on his part; he just had to work at not choking.

The bloke twitched and hiccupped as John pulled away with a last lick. He took the liberty of laying his head against a surprisingly muscular thigh. They both breathed deep in the near silence of the room.

After a beat, John tucked him back into his trousers and then crawled up that lanky body. His smug smile became rooted in place as he stared down at the kid’s still shocked face. He looked up at John like John had the answers to all life’s questions.

“Speechless?” John teased. His mouth opened and closed comically and John laughed. “It’s all right, love. I can think of a better use for your lips than talking.”

Before he could lower himself down, his friend rose up and crashed them together. Christ, it was better than before somehow. It was desperate, pleading, as if John had the antidote to something that was killing the man beneath him. His head swam, not with liquor but with lust. It was good old fashioned _want_ but it wasn’t any less groundbreaking for all that. John held himself aloft, careful not to grind down on top of his friend’s sensitive bits, though he was desperate to ease the ache. If the thrust of the tongue in John's mouth was any sign, the bloke was willing and prepared to reciprocate, but John didn’t want to assume.

He pulled away reluctantly, just enough to look into those dazed eyes. In the dark he couldn’t discern the exact colour and for some reason that bothered him.

John started to ask, but another, more pressing question popped out. “What’s your name?”

Before he could answer, the door to the bedroom opened and bathed them in garish light. Those beautiful eyes blinked against the harshness. He looked up at John for a few precious seconds and then he was gone.

John found himself flung aside as the bloke rolled from the bed. He yanked his hood over his head, pulled it snug, and then bolted past Mike to the party beyond.

“John?” Mike questioned, uncertain.

John looked up at the ceiling in confusion.  It became clear that he was still drunk; the ceiling spun to the left and his head tilted with it. Strange because he hadn’t felt so with his new friend- he’d never felt better in fact. But as he blinked over at Mike in the doorway he had to admit he felt sick.

 _Abandoned_ and sick.

“They were blue,” he whispered to himself.

 

~*~

 

The next morning John did indeed wake up with a massive hangover. He was horrifically ill for the first two hours after waking.  It almost felt like a penance for all the misdeeds he’d managed the night before. He remembered it all perfectly well, despite all logic. He remembered Mike drag/carrying him back to the dorm. He remembered Bill swearing to watch over him but immediately bailing when his girlfriend showed up. And he remembered waiting for the sexual crisis to wash over him and being shocked when it never came. He fell asleep feeling restless but surprisingly okay with the night’s events. John didn’t put any stock in his Catholic upbringing; he’d forsaken that path at the age of nine, irreconcilable differences, but once a Catholic, always a Catholic, so he did his damnedest to call up some form of guilt. Try as he might though, he couldn’t seem to regret sleeping with a bloke. At least, not in the way he knew his mother would want. The idea of it did seem strange in the light of day, he supposed. Not bad, but certainly out of character for the previously straight John Watson. He’d noticed men before, of course, but in what seemed a perfectly normal ‘yes he’s good looking’ sort of way. Never in the ‘I’d like to gag on his penis’ sort of way. So it made sense to feel a bit hung up on that part but, if anything, the more he thought about it, the more he wished he’d gotten the mystery bloke’s name at the very least. Maybe he could clear some of these thoughts and feelings up if they had another chat. Or maybe they could just snog it out.

Most of his guilt seemed to stem from cheating on Mary. He shouldn’t feel that way, considering, but there it was. He’d never cheated before. It said more about his mystery date’s appeal than anything; that John would forsake principle for a good shag. He’d cheated on a girlfriend, slept with a bloke for the first time, one who was clearly under the influence… and all John kept coming back around to was the colour of his eyes.

 _Not even blue,_ he mused to himself, _blue-green-grey with a little fleck of gold in the left._

John stared at his reflection in the mirror and wondered at himself. The outside hadn’t changed a bit. Bit pale maybe but, beside the alcohol consumption evident in his sallow complexion, one wouldn’t know John Watson had done the previously unheard of the night before.

He turned away from the mirror and wished he could put off his next task until Monday. But getting caught with someone last night was bound to get back to Mary eventually, he should do it sooner rather than later. He had sworn Mike to secrecy but Mike Stamford was as gossipy as a table of elderly women playing bridge and John was damned if Mary got the chance to break it off for cheating before he could.

His sun-glass bespectacled self wasn't the only one on campus, as he shuffled, hands in jacket pockets, towards Mary's dorm. It was Uni on a weekend after all. He gave a few nods to fellow students as he trudged up the steps to her building, his guts twirling as he made the walk up all six flights.

“Mary,” he called down the hall when he caught her leaving her room. She turned with a smile, a guileless thing, an innocent thing, like she loved him still. John's fortitude solidified in the face of it. How _dare_ she play the innocent with him.

“Can we talk?” He asked, motioning for her to open the door again.

Mary looked him over, trying her best to parse his mood but he gave nothing. That alone probably conveyed his anger.

“What’s wrong?” She asked when they were inside. It was clear she hadn’t heard anything yet or she wouldn’t need to ask.

John pulled her by the hand toward the sofa, the very place she’d snogged, and more, probably, with David not twenty four hours earlier. He ran his free hand over the coarse fabric and tried to find the words to explain how incredibly done with her he was.

“What is it, John? Should I be worried?” She spoke so softly, like a fragile bird in fear of being crushed.

John pulled the memory of Mary writhing in David’s lap and looked her in the eye when he stated, quite plainly, “If you love me at all, yeah, you should be worried.” Her eyes widened at that but he kept on. “Seeing as I don’t believe you’ve loved me for some time now, I’m not all that worried for you.”

“What-“

“I saw you.”

That shut her up. Her eyes widened but she didn't deny it.

“I saw you, right here,” he pulled his hand away from hers to set his fingertips in the space between them, “with David last night.”

“John…” Mary whispered but, again, nothing else was forthcoming.

“Look,” John snapped, “if you wanted something else, someone else, you should have told me. We might have been able to work on it. It’s too late now. I’d like to say I’m sorry this happened but… the sad part is… I’m not.”

Anger tightened her brow then. “Oh, so you’re going to be hurtful now? That's grown up of you.”

“I’m not trying to hurt you, Mary. I’m telling you the truth. If the truth hurts then maybe it’s a sign, yeah?”

She had nothing to say to that either. So be it. John wasn't going to hash it out more than he had to.

He rose to go but she grabbed his hand and stopped him.

“But what are you going to do now?” She didn’t even mean it maliciously. It was obvious she was under the assumption that she was the driving force in his life.

“Do you really think you’re the only thing keeping me going?”

Her mouth open and shut like a fish, unable to formulate an answer that wasn’t ‘well, yes.’

John turned on his heel and marched away. The door slammed with a satisfying thump and he smirked to himself in pleasure. The bloke from last night had been right - he'd wanted to do that for a long time.

Her words echoed in his ear though. What _was_ he going to do now? He had unwittingly been letting her steer his life for the last year, with school and friends and that, and now that he was free the only thing that leapt out at him was…

John rushed down the hall, burst through the door to the stairwell, and flew down nearly every step until he reached the fourth floor. Before he even reached Colby’s room he could see a long black, possibly wool, coat hanging on the hook outside her door.

He approached slowly, looking around for witnesses, before easing forward to reach the item. There was a note attached.

_Idiot owner of this coat, you left it here last night. If it’s still here when I get up from my hangover I’m taking it to LP. -CN_

John didn’t know why he knew it was his friend’s, but he did. It was dramatic and posh and, most important, still here. Considering the rush the bloke had been in to escape last night that evidence alone was pretty telling.

He pulled the coat down -it was heavier than it looked - and knocked on Colby’s door. It took a few tries but she finally answered.

“What?” She growled.

John bit the inside of his cheek not to smirk at her morning after attire. Sweats, hair knotted at the nape of her neck, make-up smeared. He wasn’t laughing _at_ her, more _with_ her, in commiseration, but he didn’t think she’d appreciate the distinction.

“I think I know whose coat this is, you mind if I give it back?”

She looked John up and down before she shrugged and then, without ceremony, shut the door in his face.

_Right. Note to self: do not trust Colby Nelson with personal items._

John clutched the coat to his chest and made off with it like he had the crown jewels. John knew the kid from last night was smart. If he cared to come back for his coat, and John was sure he would, he’d have to come to John to get it, and he was clever enough to work out who would have taken it. All he had to do now was wait.

And wait he did. All day and well into the night.

The first thing he did when he got back to his room was throw the coat down and search through it for clues. There were several pockets, all either extremely deep or hidden between the folds with tiny zippers.  John felt certain that was the entire reason behind the purchase of the coat to begin with. Once the bounty was all removed he stood back and surveyed.

A toothbrush and small tube of paste; packet of crisps: empty; four differently sized skeleton keys; a small child’s neon green rubber ball; a lockpicking set; a notebook written in a code John couldn’t decipher; pen to go with the note book; four hundred quid he found hidden in the lining; and a small bird skull. The last John set aside on his nightstand to study at his leisure. Such a strange person but… John couldn’t wait to talk to him again.

He settled in for the day, after replacing the items where he found them; all but the skull, which he continued to glance at throughout his wait. He even made sure to keep the telly volume down so he’d hear if anyone knocked, but no one did. Every time someone walked down the hall John’s blood pressure shot up but then they’d continue on and he’d deflate again. Near two in the morning John finally gave up and fell asleep. He dreamt his mystery lover crawled into his bed and wrapped long, wiry arms around him. He held tightly to this sensation until morning, when he woke with an empty stomach and an even emptier bed.

His eyes immediately fell upon the chair where he’d draped the coat the night before.

The empty chair.

“What?” He mumbled as he got up to search his room.

He checked his roommates bed, the closet, under his own bed, everywhere. The coat was gone. What he did find, on his nightstand, was a note, previously nonexistent before John had gone to bed. On it the bird skull sat as a paper weight.

_John, Thank you for keeping my coat safe for me until I could fetch it. Congratulations on your newfound freedom from Mary. Please don’t attempt to contact me. P.S. You can keep the Linnet skull, I have no need of it. I found it in the south end of Regents._

That was it. Not even signed, the bastard. John didn’t care how he’d known about the break-up with Mary, it was probably obvious to a guy like that. John just wanted to know his damn name!  Was that so much to ask? If the bloke wasn’t interested that was fine, he supposed, but for him to know John’s name when he hadn’t shared the same courtesy, it galled.  And he’d broken into John’s room while he slept, which was… well, it was kind of impressive actually. Especially when he hadn’t his lock picking set at the time.

John picked up the tiny bird skull again and looked it over. Such a strange memento, bleached white and so fragile, but it seemed fitting for such a strange encounter. His fingertip traced the tiny beak as he contemplated nothing at all.

He sniffed and set the thing back on the nightstand. What did he care if it was a one off? Who wanted to get entangled with someone who picked up bird skulls in the park and pocketed them anyway? It was weird. The kid was weird.

John pulled the blanket back over his head and laid in bed for another four hours.

 

~*~

 

Six weeks later, John found, despite his motivation to go Pre-Med and show Mary how wrong she was, he was failing Biology and his professors had started noticing his drinking. He’d already been reprimanded once that week for coming to class hung over and had his priorities questioned.

John bristled at the memory, pushed his sunglasses up his nose and then tugged his bag straighter on his back. He’d quit rugby so he wouldn’t have to look at David and wonder if he was feeling smug about Mary. He’d switched to Pre-Med because he’d always wanted to and now he was free to do so. He’d started drinking more because…

Because it was fun.

“Hey, Watson!” Someone called from behind. He waited for them to catch up rather than turn and look. His neck had cramped from passing out in the backseat of some bloke’s car the night before.

“Hey,” the kid puffed beside him, “John, I saw you at Tailspin last night, right?”

“Nope,” he grunted, still moving down the path. Now he was on first name basis with blokes he’d only spoken to once?

“But…” The kid, whose name escaped John, didn’t matter either way, looked baffled. He had, in fact, seen John at Tailspin last night, but John wasn’t about to own that to a practical stranger yet. Unless this was the bloke whose car he’d woken up in. He glanced over. No, that one had been a ginger, this one was blond with a lip piercing- not really John’s thing.

“I think it’s cool, you know,” the kid muttered. “You being bi. Shattering stereotypes and that." He chuckled. "My ex, George McCall, said you broke his heart last night. I think you're my new hero.”

Well, so much for plausible deniability. George had been Wednesday's conquest and John wasn't into repeat performances.

“Ta,” John growled. He jogged up the steps to Mercer Building and left the bloke to his own devises.

Apparently when the Captain of the rugby team suddenly quits, breaks up with his girlfriend and starts shagging any bloke who stands in front of him long enough, people notice. Great. So he was infamous.

“You’re late, Watson,” Professor Gregson droned when John shuffled in.

“Sorry,” he mumbled back. “Won’t happen again.”

“I’m sure,” he replied. “As I was saying.”

John tuned the rest of it out in favour of studying the back of his eyelids.

At one point John glanced over to see Jenny Sheffield giving him the eye from four seats over. He returned it from over the tops of his sunglasses, but with slight confusion.   _Jenny Sheffield was dating Cory Woodward… why would she… oh…_ Cory leaned over Jenny’s shoulder and winked. _Huh. Learned something new every day._ He grinned at them both, pleased with the developments. He had yet to knock two out of the park in one go and it sounded like his kind of challenge.

“Care to venture a guess, Mr. Watson?” Gregson’s voice boomed over the class.

John snapped to attention. “I’m sorry?”

He gave a great sigh, dramatic, and, for the second time that week, spoke the dreaded, “See me after the lecture, John.”

He winced but nodded. He did try to pay attention after that but the rhythmic, dull way Gregson droned on drove John round the bend. The professor had missed his calling in public talk radio.

Once class dismissed, John shuffled forward toward the man’s desk, where he silently packed his satchel with papers from the beginning of class.

“I don’t suppose you have the paper on Cell Regeneration,” Gregson drawled. It was clear he didn't hold out much hope.

John shuffled in place, hiking his bag up his shoulder. “No, sir.” He honestly didn’t even remember hearing about it.

Gregson just shook his head. “I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, son, I really did. I understand you kids are going through a lot at this age.”

John’s initial reaction was to deny he was going through anything, but Gregson was handing him a bone, so he nodded with a weary malaise, as if his whole world was crumbling around him.

“I get it, John, I really do but I still need to see at least some effort on your part. I should have warned you sooner, but your grades are already slipping and it’s not even mid-terms yet.”

That was how far John had fallen from his golden boy status, he wasn’t even aware of where his grades sat, in this class or his others. He hadn’t cared. Medicine was supposed to be his dream, the great accomplishment of his lifetime, and he was fucking it up already.

“What can I do?” He asked, voice small and truly apologetic.

Gregson looked him in the eye, testing his sincerity. John must have passed muster because Gregson dug in his bag and fished out a small, pristine white business card.  

“Here. If it’s something you’d be interested in, this is the information of the best tutor we have here on campus. Though his actual location is just off site.”

John flipped the card in his hand to read it.

_Sherlock Holmes_

_Private Tutor_

_Lessons in Chemistry, Pathology, Biology & Criminology_

_221B Baker Street London Eng._

“Criminology?” John blurted out.

“Yeah, I’m not sure about that last one,” he admitted with a scratch to his chin. “But he’s the best we have, that I can guarantee.”

“No phone number,” John stated. It was a strange way to advertise.

Gregson gave a chuckle. “He wouldn’t answer anyway. The most you’ll get is a text if you’re lucky. He’s... strict about study times. As long as you stick to the allowed schedule you’d be all right. How do you feel about it?”

John thought it couldn’t hurt. It would cut into his free time but if he failed his requisite classes, he’d never forgive himself. No amount of experimentation was worth his entire future.

So he agreed. “Yeah, sure. I’m amiable.”

Gregson grinned but it had an edge to it, like he was hiding something. “Excellent. I’ll set it up for you and let you know when to meet. Holmes is picky about new students, he’ll cotton to the idea faster if I smooth the way.”

So he was difficult, that was fine, as long as he could help John catch up with his school work he’d be grateful.

“I’ll email you as soon as I hear back from him. Meanwhile, you’ve a paper due on Cell Regeneration,” he reminded with a look over top of his glasses.

“Yes, sir.” John shot him a grin, disarming and contrite in equal measure, and gave a salute. He left feeling a bit better, though he’d probably come to regret agreeing to the whole tutor idea soon enough. He’d not needed help studying since Year Nine, when Regina Hummel had decidedly _not_ been coaching him on Maths.  

“John Watson, you are a slut,” he mused aloud as he jogged down the steps of the building. He could only hope this Mr. Holmes was a white haired grandfatherly type who was grumpy and smelled like muscle rub. _Or maybe he’s a slightly greying middle aged type who’s charming and smells like wood smoke_ , John mused. He could work with that.

He shook his head at himself with a grin and made his way back to the dorm with a bounce in his step.  

~*~

John had a problem with issued challenges. He was as bad as Marty McFly getting called a chicken.

“C’mon, white boy, you can do better than that,” the big berk crooned.

John swallowed the excess saliva and tried again. Bernard - he was fairly sure the bloke’s name was Bernard - groaned and let his head hit the back of the stall door. His hand cradled John’s head, stroking the fine hairs behind his ear.

 _This is ridiculous. You’re never gonna fit the whole thing in your mouth,_ he chastised himself. _Just work the head till he gets off so you can rest your fucking jaw_.

“Ever taken one this big up the arse, white boy?”

John looked up in sudden, pulse pounding terror. No way he could...

The bloke laughed down at him and John let out a snort to see the man was clearly teasing him. “Yeah, probably best not, right? Tear your little arse right up, it would. But I do love to watch them stretch.”

Christ, he loved to talk too, didn’t he? John refused to be turned on by the words. He should be horrified. Well, good luck explaining it to his cock, which pressed up hard against his zip, leaking a wet spot in his pants.

“Been told it burns like hell at first but they’re always crying for more by the time I’m done with ‘em.”

John groaned around the enormous bit of flesh filling his mouth. His hand snaked down and squeezed at his cock to relieve some of the pressure there as he continued to force Bernard’s prick further and further down his throat. He imagined taking it up his arse about as easily as one would a baseball bat, and yet…

“Bring it out, mate. Let me see,” Bernard coaxed. “C’mon, don’t be shy.”

John glanced up again briefly. Bernard looked like a choirboy and nothing like the man who’d practically wrestled John from the skinny bloke he’d been dancing with. He'd placed John’s hand straight onto his massive cock through his trousers; hardly the work of an innocent. John would forever remember the rush of a challenge not yet crossed off his mental list. He’d given a nod and they’d practically run for the loo. He was surprised he’d gotten the man’s name honestly.

With renewed fervor, John pawed at his jeans until his cock was freed and he could stroke fully without restriction.

“Damn, white boy,” Bernard breathlessly quipped, “respect.”

John looked up with a smirk. Or as much of one as he could manage, considering.

“Wouldn’t mind jumping on that myself, honestly,” he muttered next.

John’s eyes bugged. He never would have thought-

“Oi, get laid on your own time! Some of us have to shite!” A thick Scottish burr shouted over top of the stall. John snorted and Bernard laughed. Even six weeks in John knew what a faux pas it was to comment on the goings on in the loo.

“Best finish up then, aye?” Bernard teased with crinkles at the corners of his eyes.  

John pulled off enough to mutter, “Wouldn’t want to keep the man from his business.” And then he went back to it, concentrating threefold on the tip to speed things along.

Bernard groaned above him, and John warmed with pride, as he always did when this bit came. _Literally_ , he thought with a snort.

“Harder,” he growled, fingernails scratching pleasantly along John’s scalp.

John obliged, hollowing his cheeks around the fat cock end, fist pumping double-time along the shaft.  His left working his own harder as well, simply getting off on getting someone else off.  When Bernard began to swell against John’s tongue he mentally prepared himself. He hadn’t yet found a correlation between bollock size and the amount of ejaculate, but one could never be too sure when it came. He’d not go out by choking to death on semen in the toilet of a gay bar; his mother would have a fit.  

Bernard reached up and lay his hand over John’s, helping to wank him into his finish the way he liked. With a long groan he finally spent down the back of John’s throat. It didn’t seem an inordinate amount. Maybe he should be writing the shit down in a notebook or something. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.

“C’mere,” Bernard forcefully pulled John up, reaching for his prick as soon as he was on his feet.

John gasped at the feel of it, those huge hands easily circling the whole thing.  Most of the blokes he’d been with had done fine but this was something else.

“Fuck,” he grunted and let his hips shove hard into Bernard’s fist. “Fuck, that’s good.”

“Mmm,” Bernard hummed as he bent low to snog the daylights out of John.

His rhythm became disjointed as his orgasm neared and he pulled away from the kiss enough to suck in a breath when it hit. Bernard chuckled as he did his best to dodge the worst of it.

“That was… Christ.” John fell back against the opposite wall as he sucked in oxygen.  

“Good?”

John looked up and chuckled. “Yeah. Good.”

“Good.” He grinned. “Maybe I’ll see you around here again?”

He didn’t want to make promises he couldn’t keep, he had just sworn to put more effort into his studies after all, but he was feeling pretty optimistic after the orgasm, so he answered in the affirmative.

“Maybe we’ll both be up for a challenge, huh?” Bernard growled low, leering.

John swallowed reflexively but didn’t answer, which in turn made Bernard chuckle, not unkindly.

“Thanks, mate,” he said jovially, popped another swift kiss on John’s lips and then exited the stall.

John probed at the corner of his lips with his tongue, the tender flesh stinging now that the rush of serotonin had fled, and was grateful Bernard hadn’t pushed him that far. His love of a challenge was going to land him in A and E one day.  

The loo was empty by the time he followed behind, and John only briefly wondered at it. He splashed a bit of water on his face, lightly smacked himself in an attempt to sober up, and then quit the still hopping club. 

On his way home that night, or early morning, depending how you looked at it, he purposefully avoided wondering why he felt the need to engage in the sorts of acts he’d engaged in these last few weeks. He was having fun, he told himself, and as long as his school work was taken more seriously, no one could have any objections. Right? Uni was all about growing up, experimenting, finding out who you were and what you wanted, and wasn’t that what John was doing? He’d been having a grand time of it and he saw no reason to stop.

If there was a voice in the back of his mind that screamed he was being reckless, he didn’t acknowledge it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John Watson- you _are ___a slut.


	2. Number One Crush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When John is sent to Baker Street needing help with his Biology, one would assume an Anatomy lesson would be had instead, but this is Sherlock and John we're talking about...navigating their feelings is not their forte.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We switch over to Sherlock's POV in this chapter. Sherlock finds the next student in need of tutoring is the exact last person he expects. Idiocy is the nicest description for his next move.  
> A thousand apologies if you were expecting more smut in this chapter. None to be found here, sorry. Sherlock is much more into keeping his wits about him around John. And impressing him with his intelligence, of course, which is why I included a tiny case. Hope you like.

“Sherlock, are you paying attention?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think you are.”

“I am.”

“What did I just say, then?”

He looked up from his book and blinked at Mrs. Hudson, hoping she’d get bored eventually and leave.

“Just as I thought. I said, you had a call and since you weren’t answering, I answered it for you.” She paused when he let out a great sigh but then continued. “It was that Professor Gregson. He says to remind you, you have a new student coming in today. I wrote it all down here, in case you forget. He’s due round after Miss Riser, I believe.”

“Yes, good, fine.” He waved her off and went back to his book with the soundtrack of Mrs. Hudson’s disgruntled groan playing in the background.

Sherlock could only hope whoever the next student was, they weren’t a complete idiot. He’d had plans after Antoinette Riser’s study session. Things to see, people to snog.

~*~

“You’ve a knock on the door,” Antoinette informed him, as if he were deaf.

“Mrs. Hudson will get it.” He pushed the paper back around to her. “Now, please explain to me how you came to this ridiculous conclusion.”

Her lips turned down at the corners and Sherlock swore internally. He knew not to push this one too far; she’d start crying if he so much as raised his voice.

“I don’t know,” she simpered.

“You don’t-“ He pushed his fingers through his curls, a small tug to ground him. “You seem to be under the impression that the integer for peroxide is negative two.”

“It’s not?”

He ground his molars together. Why was he doing this again? Oh, yes. Because Mycroft was blackmailing him, the waddling shit.

“No, dear,” he coddled, with only the vaguest touch of sarcasm, “it’s not. Negative one, remember?”

Antoinette made an ‘Oh’ face and pulled the textbook and paper forward to rework the problem. While she was bent over the book, Sherlock clawed dramatically at his face.

_Three more months, three more months, three more-_

“Okay, got it,” she crowed triumphantly.

It took Sherlock less than a second to process how she’d managed to butcher the equation this time. His arm fell over the side of the chair, the page fell to the floor, and he let his head fall back against the leather cushion. He sighed so hard his fringe trembled.

“What did I do this time?” She cried. “I substituted the right integer!”

Sherlock stared up at the ceiling, tracing  the lines of the plaster breaks while he willed his tongue to unstick from the roof of his mouth instead of just wordlessly screaming. “Yes, you did. In the first half.”

Antoinette mumbled, “What?”

Sherlock could trace the sound as she got up to pick the paper off the floor.

“Ah, dammit. I give up! Chemistry is bollocks!” Her voice broke and she sniffed pitifully. Another second went by in silence before she started gathering up her things.

“Miss Riser,” he waited until she stopped sniffing before continuing, “remember why you wanted to be a chemist in the first place. I’ll see you here again next week.”

Antoinette didn’t get a chance to argue or agree, as Mrs. Hudson interrupted.

“Sherlock, dear, your new student is downstairs, shall I send him up?”

He looked away from the ceiling to see Antoinette shuffle past Mrs. Hudson in the doorway, head down, shoulders high. His landlady gave him a disapproving glare but he just shrugged.

“I suppose. Yes, send him up.”

Antoinette would be back, he wasn’t worried about that. He went back to staring at the ceiling. There was a missing flake of paint that looked like Saudi Arabia and it calmed him to trace its shape.

“Why was she crying?” Sherlock heard faintly from the stairs. Even muffled the concern was audible.

He gave a start.

 _Not possible_ , his conviction screamed, but the evidence spoke for itself. As soon as John made it to the doorway, their eyes connected.

Horror seized Sherlock for a solid three seconds, during which he managed to chastise himself for getting caught, wondered how the hell he’d even managed to bollocks it up, and then swiftly formulated a plan of attack. He almost blew the whole thing by asking how the hell John had found him, but quickly moved past that line of inquiry. It didn’t matter _how_ , just that he had.  

“Oh,” John breathed, eyes wide. “It’s you.”

This new intel halted Sherlock’s scathing words in their tracks. John had no idea Sherlock would be here. How was that possible? Oh. Simple. He was _actually_ there to be _tutored_. The universe was a grand place, wasn’t it?

New plan. Not attack, deflect.

“It is. Can I help you?” He was the consummate actor.

John’s growing smile melted into a confused mein. “What?”

“Can I help you?” He repeated a bit slower.

John glanced around, as if he’d lost his bearings . “Well, I- We- Do you not…”

Sherlock raised his eyebrows as John floundered. He watched as the man frowned at his shoes, and took the opportunity to look John over. Same boring brown shoes as always (all his money went toward essentials), with a newly washed jeans and jumper combo. Simple but somehow utterly gut melting for Sherlock, though he’d yet to deduce why. Damn the man; without even trying he had Sherlock squirming.

John tried again. “So are you waiting for Mr. Holmes too or…?”

Sherlock’s eyebrows rose even higher. “No,” he drawled.

“Oh.”

Christ, he was so deliciously flustered. Sherlock felt his pulse kick up a notch, knowing he had John at a disadvantage. He rose slowly and moved forward. John held his position, only his chin raising as Sherlock neared.

“Let’s allay some of this confusion, shall we?” He held his hand out casually, as if touching bare skin meant nothing at all. John hesitantly took it. “Mr. Holmes, at your service.”

John’s hand slowly lost its up and down motion. “What? _You?_ ”

“’Fraid so.”

“ _You’re_ the tutor?”

“Yes. Problem?”

John laughed incredulously. “No, I suppose not. Do you live here?”

Sherlock was suddenly very aware of the fact that Mrs. Hudson hadn’t cleaned that day. He’d completely wrecked the sofa with old vinyl records and soap carvings.  Did the flat smell like burnt eyeballs? He couldn’t tell.

“…Yes,” he admitted after a beat.

“How? Campus rule states first years have to room in the dorms.”

“That’s true...but I don’t go to school there anymore.”

“Huh. All right.” John’s mind seemed to settle on the most obvious reason, to him anyway. “Did you…uh…did you drop out?”

The corner of Sherlock’s lips ticked in amusement. “I graduated last year.”

Much to Sherlock’s delight, John looked thoroughly impressed. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“Science, then?”

“Chemistry, yes.” Though he’d not be utilizing his degree the way John probably thought. More footwork than labwork, if all went according to plan. Which it would, because Sherlock was a genius.

John glanced curiously about the room, noting the mess but hopefully the interesting bits as well.

“And you live alone?” He casually asked as his eyes darted to and fro.

Oh, bless him, he was _fishing_. “Yes, technically. There is Mrs. Hudson, my jailer.”

John chuckled. “I thought she was the housekeeper.”

“Landlady, dear,” Mrs. Hudson, herself, corrected as she bustled in. _With a tea tray_ , Sherlock added silently, which sort of disproved the correction in itself.

John reacted to her voice as if shocked, and Sherlock was amazing to find they had been holding hands through the entire conversation. The brief moment was shattered as John wrenched his hand away as if horrified to have found it there.

Sherlock frowned down at his own hand but John paid no mind to the awkwardness.

“Landlady, right,” John muttered as he set his bag down and rushed over to help her set the tray on the kitchen table.

She assured him it was taken care of but he insisted, so she let him help set the kettle up, all the while chatting amicably like two old mates. It was hardly a two person job, making tea, but it seemed John no longer wanted to be in the same room with Sherlock. He wasn’t sure what had happened exactly but it angered him that he was even bothered about it. He wasn’t supposed to want John’s attention, and he’d seemed to have forgotten that fact in the man’s presence. _No better than a tail-wagging puppy_ , he internally chastised.  

“Sherlock, when will you clear this table off so it can be used for its intended purpose? If I spill cream on something and it explodes you’ll only have yourself to blame.”

“Impossible, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock drawled as he fell back into his chair. “You wouldn’t be caught dead using powdered creamer, which is the only form of cream that is explosive.”

“Oh, well, good-”

“Sugar on the other hand…”

“Oh, you!” She grumbled, setting the sugar pot down with a clank, possible combustion be damned.

John seemed to think this was comical.  He turned his head away and Sherlock could see the shake of his shoulders, indicating suppressed laughter. He told himself he wasn’t the least bit affected by it. _Lies_.

“Oh, I forgot the biscuits,” she huffed, marching back downstairs.

John puttered around in the kitchen a bit longer, but there was only so much to look at before he had to turn back toward the sitting room. He hovered in the doorway though, as if Sherlock were a dangerous beast and the chair between them the bars of a cage.

“So, tell me, what subject are we studying?” Sherlock asked with as much congenially as he could muster.

“Professor Gregson didn’t tell you?”

He shrugged. It was possible but Sherlock had no recollection of speaking to the man, or if Mrs. Hudson had mentioned it.

“Um,” John nervously licked his lips, a trait Sherlock was coming to abhor, “Introduction to Biology.”

Sherlock nodded. “All right. Simple enough. What are you having an issue with specifically?”

John glanced over when Mrs. Hudson came back with the biscuits but she waved him off when he turned to help again. He reluctantly looked back at Sherlock, who held his spine erect, patiently waiting for an answer.

“We’re on cell regeneration. I’m fairly behind, apparently. My notes are, um,” he shuffled, “incomplete.”

_Because you’ve been shagging your way through every gay bar in Soho for the last month and a half…_

“I’m sure we can get you caught up,” Sherlock responded with a smile.

John eyebrows shot up in surprise, but he was distracted by Mrs. Hudson bustling past. She set the tea tray down on the coffee table at Sherlock’s feet and John frowned when Sherlock didn’t lift a finger to help her. Not that John knew but Sherlock had his knuckles rapped enough times to know better.

“There you boys go. I’ll be downstairs if you need anything else.”

Sherlock couldn’t help but chuckle at John’s bemused expression. _Some landlady_ , he could read like a banner across the man’s face.

“Let’s get started,” he suggested, “shall we?”  Sherlock gestured for John’s to bring his bag closer.

John complied, allowing Sherlock to flip through what bit of notes he had taken. It wasn’t much, but, as he already knew, John hadn’t exactly been giving school work his all as of late. Honestly, he was surprised John hadn’t been doodling cocks in the margins of his notebook.

He bristled at the thought and slapped the pages down.

“You’ve got the basics, which is a good foundation. We’ll go over neuropeptides first, as you seem to have missed that lecture.”

John started laughing. Sherlock stared him down until it subsided into giggles before he responded.

“What?”

The corner of John’s lip twitched again.

“Nothing. It’s just…you…teaching me…about biology.”

It wasn’t as if Sherlock wasn’t aware of the irony, but, as he was feigning as if he didn’t recall John taking his cock down the back of his throat, he just continued to wait for elaboration.

John squirmed in his seat and apparently decided to go the coward’s route. His eyes slipped up and away as he continued, “You’re so young, I mean. I feel like I’m being coached by a foetus.”

Sherlock straightened up to his full height at that. John mirrored the move, whether unconsciously or not.

“Tell me, _John_ , was it? What happens when dopaminergic input from the VTA modulates the activity of neurons within the nucleus accumbens?”

John blinked at him from across the coffee table.

“As I thought. We’ll leave that for another day perhaps.” Sherlock pulled John’s textbook from his bag and tossed it into his lap. He caught it with only the barest scowl of inconvenience, but Sherlock ignored him. “Find the chapter on neuropeptides, read it in its entirety and then recite it back to me with the best of your ability.”

John chuckled until he saw Sherlock was serious. “What? Are you kidding?”

“I never kid.”

John stared at Sherlock as if he’d suggested John chew up the book and ingest the information that way.

“I can’t do that.”

“You can. I never said it had to be correct, just read back what you remember.”

“But…” John struggled to find his argument and Sherlock found he was quite fond of the look. Indignation, surprise, frustration, and begrudging respect all rolled into one. It was possible Sherlock would never tire of teasing John Watson. He’d have to test the theory.

Twenty-five minutes later John groaned, stretched, and glared at Sherlock with such disdain one would think he’d chained John to the wall first before making him study.

“Finished,” he announced.

Sherlock bit his tongue to recall the ‘obviously’ that almost escaped. John was already on edge, it was best not to push him too far just yet.

“Excellent,” he responded instead. He steepled his fingers and waited.

John blinked...and then he frowned. Sherlock rarely found the word adorable cross his mind, but what else did one call that befuddled puppy look?

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” He asked incredulously. Sherlock answered by raising a brow. John then huffed and proceeded to recite what little of the chapter he could recall, which wasn’t much. John was apparently under the assumption that Vasopressors were used to increase bladder function. _Ridiculous._  It was good he'd come to Sherlock now before he actually got his hands on a patient. The recitation was enough _wrong_ information that Sherlock could pinpoint exactly what John’s learning type was, easily established between his note style and his reading comprehension, which was nil.

John Watson was a kinesthetic learner. He learned by doing; not by sight or sound but by touch. He would make an amazing surgeon one day.

“Very good, John, thank you,” he mumbled as he made a few notes of his own in the margins of John’s notebook. “Now, tell me, what is it exactly you wish to accomplish here?”

“What’d you mean?”

“Do you wish to simply catch up on cell regeneration, or would you like ongoing lessons in how to retain information despite your learning disability?”

John scoffed as if insulted, which Sherlock found odd.

“I don’t have a learning disability.”

“Yes, technically, you do,” he insisted.

Fingernails scraped fabric and Sherlock found his head tilting to the left to study John’s white-knuckled grip on the chair.

“Why do you think I have a learning disability?” John ground out angrily.

“Perhaps you’re dissatisfied with the word disability? Honestly, there’s nothing to be ashamed of, John. It’s perfectly natural to learn at your own pace.”

The tip of John’s tongue darted between his lips, but it didn’t take a genius to deduce that it was anything but sexual. John looked ready to launch himself across the table between them and choke the life from Sherlock. Tap, tap, tap went his fingers on the chair.

“You know what? I didn’t come here to be insulted,” he snapped.

Sherlock rose from his seat in shock when John did, watching in mute horror as John angrily shoved his notes and book into his bag. It wasn’t until John made for the door that Sherlock snapped out of his disbelief.

“John! Wait!” He cried out, and then immediately winced at the clear, desperate panic in his voice.

John, thankfully, stopped but didn’t turn. “What?”

“Just… Let me explain?”

John’s chin fell to his chest. Letting out a great sigh, he hiked his bag further up his shoulder, slowly turning back around to face the room, his eyes avoiding Sherlock. He’d take it anyway, as he was suddenly desperate to remain in John’s company.

“When I said you had a disability, what I meant was, you learn in a different manner than most of the population. Instead of learning by sight or sound, you learn by touch, by doing and performing. It’s why you excel at sports, but have always had to study just a little bit harder at academics. You’re not an idiot, John, I would never accuse you of being so,” John snorted at this but Sherlock went on, “you just learn _differently_. It’s not uncommon for kinesthetic learners to fall behind simply because teachers aren’t aware of the disability, and therefore have no understanding of how to better adapt their teaching styles to include them. The fact that you made it to Uni itself proves you are incredibly intelligent, resourceful, and dedicated. I applaud you, truly.”

He had to look away from John then; his stare was too intense.

“If you still want to go, I’ll understand. I could just email you some condensed notes that will help you better understand the course study on cell regeneration. But… if you’d like, I’m still willing to coach you on kinesthetic basics...for future use.”

He looked up when John didn’t respond. The man looked pensive, scanning the floor in silent wonder, before glancing back up at Sherlock.

“Kinesthetic learning, you said?” John asked, trying the word out, with another pointless tug on his bag.

“Yes. Or tactile learning, if you prefer,” he answered softly.

“I- Huh,” he mumbled, licking his lips nervously. “That makes a lot of sense actually. I’ve always had a hard time studying. Not so hard that I failed my classes but… I do have a hard time focusing on lectures and that,” he admitted.

Sherlock nodded, already having guessed that bit. “It’s a rare occurrence, kinesthetic learners, only about five percent of the population, but I was fairly convinced even before your failure to retain a fraction of the chapter you read.”

John scowled, but it was a teasing thing, and Sherlock’s stomach flipped at the sight of it. He curbed his answering smirk and instead shuffled towards the untouched plate of biscuits, just for something to do with his hands.

He chewed casually, not tasting a thing, then brushed some loose crumbs off his chest and mumbled, “So, pre-med, am I correct?”

“Yes,” John drawled with a slightly confused tilt of his head.

“I ask because I think you’d make a fantastic surgeon. Hands-on work would be your forte, obviously.”

Even after explaining, John still looked on in confusion. Sherlock was about to ask which part John was having a hard time with when he blurted out, “Christ, you really don’t remember me, do you?”

The Globe unknowingly lost one of its greatest actors when Sherlock responded with, “No. Should I?” He could only hope John didn’t know MI-6 tactics on how to spot a lie by visual cues.

John’s puzzlement turned to a visible wince. Something plucked hard at Sherlock’s guts but he ignored it. No sense coming clean at this point in the game, was there?

“No…it’s just…we met at a party,” John finished lamely, blinking at the back of the chair he’d vacated minutes before.

“Did we?” Sherlock queried with just the right amount of curiosity. “Funny. I must have deleted it.”

“Deleted?” John asked in obvious confusion.

“Yes.” It had been awhile since he’d had to explain it to anyone. “I’m blessed, you might say, with an eidetic memory. Perfect recall if you will. But occasionally my brain needs maintenance, clean up. I get rid of useless information to make room for more important things.”

John’s face went comically blank and then upon realizing this, went in the exact opposite direction by looking dramatically interested.

“Nothing against you, John,” Sherlock rushed to allay the obvious issue, “it must have just been a boring party. Not much need to retain bad music and no doubt worse booze.” He feigned a chuckle, under duress. He was no longer sure he should have gone the route of non-remembrance.   

John made a sort of ‘ah’ face- there was no other way to describe it, but still he didn’t respond. Insulted? _Rightfully so_ , his conscience mumbled. It had been one of the more transcendental experiences of Sherlock’s young life and John would no doubt be thrilled to know it, considering the obvious pride he took in his…hobby.

“Yeah, no, it was…it was, uh, pretty lame, yeah,” John eventually stuttered out, his shoes toeing at the carpet.

 _Karma, Sherlock_ , his bastard conscience informed him after his stomach dropped. What did he expect? Tit for tat after all. _But you think I don’t remember!_ He wanted to argue, _you_ do _remember! You’re not supposed to agree that it was shit!_

“Yes,” was all he could manage. The silence turned awkward and he hastened to fill it. “Did you decide to continue with lessons?”

When John didn’t respond immediately, Sherlock cursed himself for a fool in nine different languages. Insulting the man not once but twice? Maybe it would be for the best, he tried to reason, there was no earthly reason to continue to see each other after all. Hadn’t he avoided John's influence for just this reason? So he wouldn’t become addicted to impressing him, as he’d already showed signs of doing?

“Um, sure, yeah, I guess,” John finally answered, just as Sherlock was about to pull the offer entirely.

 _Oh, thank god!_ Sherlock silently exclaimed in relief, and then immediately chastised himself. He was going to have to try a hell of a lot harder than that to build a wall against John Watson if a few mumbled words of acceptance already had such an effect.         

“Very well. I can fit you in again tomorrow night. Same time?” He’d have to cancel with Mr. Elkins. No matter.

“Sure,” John agreed, but any enthusiasm seemed to come from John’s want of immediate departure.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

John gave a wan smile and nodded. “Later then,” he mumbled on his way out.

Sherlock stood in the middle of the sitting room for approximately thirty seconds, long enough to hear the front door shut, before he ran from the room, down the hall and straight for his wardrobe. He flung aside various bits and bobs until he found what he was looking for- a lime green pullover hoodie. He tugged it on swiftly and then spun for his headphones, which he slung around his neck. He traded his black oxford Ferragamo’s for a pair of plain white trainers and his Gucci slacks for grey sweats. Once donned, he flung open his bedroom window and climbed out. With his hands wrapped tightly around the freezing drainpipe, he scaled down the first story until his feet were within safe dropping range. He missed Mrs. Hudson’s bins by mere inches but he gave it no thought as he slunk around the side and into the alley. From there it was easy to make his way quickly to the tube station on Marylebone. At that particular time of night it was fairly easy to blend in with the crowd; with his hood up and the headphones on his ears he was just another punk kid, slinking his way casually forward en masse with the rest of them.

When he clapped eyes on John again it was from three carriages down, which was convenient for keeping John in his sights, but also keeping himself hidden. It had long ago stopped feeling like an anomaly and more like a habit, this following John ritual he’d begun after that first night, so it felt more jarring than he’d expected when John got off four stops early than the anticipated Soho exit. He jumped up at the last minute, just as the doors were closing, since the platform was nearly abandoned, and followed. He was lucky John didn’t seem to notice; his own head was down, lost in deep thoughts perhaps.

When they emerged from the exit it became apparent, as it should have if Sherlock had been paying attention, that John was heading back to his dorm. Of course he’d want to drop off his bag and change first before going out. Obvious.

Sherlock kept two blocks between them as John meandered forward, and eventually reached his building. He hid behind a shrub and watched John enter. All Sherlock had to do was wait for John to come back and the night could continue as planned.

So wait he did...

...and waited...

...and waited.

“What are you _doing_?” He snarled aloud to the night sky. It had been nearly an hour, what could he possibly be getting up to? Perhaps he’d been spotted and John had given him the slip, gone out a side door? Impossible. And yet…

Without fully thinking it through, he left his post in the bushes and made his way forward toward the building. He punched in the key code, long since cracked, and slipped into the lobby quickly, ignoring the students loitering in the adjacent rooms playing billiards and socializing. He knew John wouldn’t be among them.

Three stories up to John’s floor and a left down the hall to room three zero four. He walked by the first time, just a quick recon, to gather enough intel that John was still inside. The television was on- Top Gear, a favourite of John’s, according to his Facebook page, but not that of his roommate, one Bill Murray, whose hobbies included women and not much else, as far as Sherlock could tell.

He circled back and made camp in the nearest stairwell. He’d spot John before John saw him, Sherlock was sure. But as more and more time passed, and it became apparent that John had no plans to leave his room for the night, Sherlock felt silly for hunkering down in the dark.

He frowned down at his watch. Two in the morning; the clubs would be closed now. Sherlock had not only been robbed of watching John at his craft, he had wasted precious time that could have been used gathering saliva samples. Why had John broken his routine? It made no sense, not logically at least. That meant it must be some emotional angle Sherlock couldn’t grasp. But he hadn’t caused it, had he? Was it that upsetting to John, Sherlock supposedly not remembering? Sure, Sherlock had been the first after John’s break from Mary, but that must mean very little in the grand scheme of things. He’d already deduced that from John’s actions of late, what with the myriad blowjobs and all.  

The point being, John hadn’t attempted to find Sherlock even though Sherlock had given several sufficient clues for John to follow. Sherlock wasn’t the sort to play hard to get more than once; he could take a hint. John needed to branch out after the previously stifling relationship, he got that. It might have galled a bit, if he were honest with himself, but he respected it. John wanted multiple partners and Sherlock wasn’t one to share. At least, he didn’t feel like that was the case; he’d never actually been in a relationship. He did feel certain finding John with several cocks queued up after his evening classes was not what Sherlock was looking for in a relationship. Hearing John contemplate taking a man up the arse last night had driven Sherlock round the twist, and they’d only shared one intoxicated night together.

A half hour passed as he puzzled out John’s motives. The dorm had quieted for the night, and it had been a while since anyone had passed the hall. He uncurled from his perch on the stairs and risked walking forward toward John’s room again.

With his ear pressed lightly against the door, he listened to the telly drone on, but no other sounds issued forth. He glanced down at the chrome door handle and dared himself to peek inside. It was imbecilic, the worst mistake he could make, but of course he did it anyway. The lock picks weren’t even needed since the door was left stupidly unlocked.

 _Good thing I have no intention of_ murdering _you_ , he thought acidly.

He already knew the hinges were well oiled and wouldn’t squeak, so he pushed it open slowly until it was wide enough to fit his head through. John was in bed, his back to the door, curled up on his side, with only his head visible above the blanket. The magenta, yellow, and cyan flickers from the telly painted John’s dark blond head in multi-colored hues, and Sherlock’s stomach flipped to see him look so small and vulnerable. The previous night Sherlock had dared the same, the night he’d come for his coat, John had fallen asleep sprawled atop his blankets like a starfish, remote control in hand and mouth open on a light snore.  He hadn’t looked nearly so dejected, or so it had seemed... not compared to this.

Sherlock didn’t know what to make of it, so he backed away and closed the door behind him.

If John was upset with Sherlock’s lies it was up to Sherlock to right that wrong.

He’d make it up to John somehow, that he swore.

~*~

“So you’re saying it’s as simple as holding them in my hand?” John asked with skeptical eye.

Sherlock dumped the box onto the coffee table between them and nodded.

“Yes, it really is. You’re not the first kinesthetic I’ve tutored, John. This technique is quite effective, trust me.”

John pursed his lips as he studied the plastic molecules, cell bits, and other detritus Sherlock used to teach. He picked a few up and toyed with them, seeing how they fit together to create larger components.

“Feels a bit primary school to me,” he grumbled as he glanced up at Sherlock through his lashes. The look, despite its grumpy intent, had the opposite effect on Sherlock. He felt as if John had grabbed hold of his throat and stroked it softly with his thumb.

Sherlock shook his head to clear it. “It’s not,” he soothed. “It will help with your cognitive recollection as well as help you visualize exactly what I’m trying to explain as we go over certain aspects.”

John huffed, set the pieces down, and leaned back.  “All right.”

Sherlock sat back down across and smiled. It was a small thing, but when John responded Sherlock forgot for a long second where he was or what he was supposed to be doing. When John coughed Sherlock snapped back to the moment, but John’s answering smile was saved in a locked box high on a shelf in a room in his mind palace reserved only for private moments.

“Let’s begin, shall we?” He leant forward and made a cancer cell for John to disassemble and recreate.

An hour later, after much grumbling on John’s part and a lot of bitten lips and tongue tips on Sherlock’s, they finally agreed on a break. John practically ran for the loo, as if Sherlock had forbade toilet breaks. Sherlock rolled his eyes and checked his mobile for something to do with his hands. A blinking green light alerted him to a missed message.

 _Missing student. Could use your help_.

It was from Lestrade, the only Campus Security guard who allowed Sherlock in on campus business. He was actually a Metro police officer but he supplemented his income with weekend guard duty. His two year beat probation was nearly up and then he’d be promoted to detective. Sherlock was hedging his bets with the man, certain he’d let Sherlock in on cases, _real cases,_ one day.

He punched his reply as John exited the loo.

_With a student. How urgent?_

The answer was immediate.

 _Not sure. That’s why I could use your help_.

“What is it?” John asked.

Sherlock felt his brow had furrowed in his curiosity, likely prompting John’s question. “Possible case,” he muttered.

_Details?_

_Laila McCurdy 20 Pre-Law student missing since this morning, not answering her phone, missed all her classes and didn’t show up for her evening shift at the café. Roommate says she recently broke up with her boyfriend but that it was amicable. Not willing to inform NSY yet but I think its fishy. Will you come?_

Sherlock looked up at John, who waited patiently for him to explain.

The chance to show what he could really do…

 _Yes. Text address_.

“A case?” John prompted after Sherlock stood and pocketed his phone.

“Missing student. I’m afraid we’ll have to cut our session short.” He reached for his coat and pulled it on. John didn’t seem to know what to do with himself. “I’ll contact you again when my schedule opens.”

“Oh. Oh, all right,” he blinked rapidly as he moved away to allow Sherlock to pass, “yeah, just, uh, text or call or you could email if that’s…uh…more…”

Sherlock stared as John’s confusion derailed his thought process. Perfect.

“Would you like to join, John?” He quietly asked.

“Join?” He parrotted, visibly brightening.

 _Like shooting fish in a barrel_ , as the Americanism went.

“I don’t suppose Lestrade would mind. Two heads are better than one after all.”

John scrambled for his jacket and followed swiftly behind. Sherlock could hardly contain his excitement as he flew down the stairs, skipping the last three entirely.

“Where are you two off to?” Mrs. Hudson questioned from her doorway as they made for the front door.

“Possible murder,” he answered, tugging his scarf tight.

John’s squeak of, “Murder!” was over-shadowed by Mrs. Hudson’s, “Have fun then.”

Sherlock didn’t respond to either, just pulled the door open and strode from the building, feeling both chilled by the wind and warmed by the influx of adrenaline.

“You said murder,” John informed him, unnecessarily, once on the pavement.

“Yes,” he drawled in response, hand in the air for a taxi. John looked both hesitant and begrudgingly impressed by Sherlock’s London Magic when one appeared. “Still interested?”

John waited a heart-stopping second before giving a huff and answering, “God help me, yes.”

Sherlock hoped the shadows from the streetlamp hid his knowing smirk as John ducked inside the cab. Once settled, he gave the address and they sped away. It was hard to keep from fidgeting as they moved along, but Sherlock did his best. He could only hope there was actually a case to solve and not just some girl who had become emotionally unstable and attempted a walkabout without bothering to informing anyone.

“Are you ever going to give me a heads up?”

“About what?” Sherlock answered absently. They turned the corner on the street where Lestrade waited, hands in his coat pockets, at the kerb. Sherlock fished the fare out of his wallet while John scoffed at him.

“Why I suddenly find myself following you to a possible murder.”

Sherlock gracefully stepped out of the cab as it rolled to a stop, not bothering to wait for John to follow. Lestrade frowned at John but met them and waved for Sherlock to follow him into the building.

“The roommate called about an hour ago, says Laila has skipped classes before, even called off work but never both and never without letting someone know why. The room looks clean but-“

“But you called me for a reason,” he interrupted.

Lestrade grimaced but nodded. “Yeah. If there’s something to it, you’ll see it.”

“Yes,” he practically growled. He strode forward past Lestrade’s lackey, Donovan, who sneered but kept her mouth shut. He also ignored the flatmate, who questioned Sherlock’s appearance. The flat wasn’t obviously disturbed, if you were a veritable idiot who didn’t know what they were looking for, which Lestrade and his team were.

_Plaster dust on the carpet from the hole where the doorknob lock hit the wall, meaning newly damaged. Junk food nearly non-existent on her side of the room, so most likely not stressed enough to warrant a mental breakdown. Text books open, notes and laptop on desk suggest studying when forced entry occurred. Didn’t put them away, left in a hurry. If she’d left her mobile Lestrade would have mentioned it, so she had it with her but hadn’t contacted any or responded to attempts to reach her. Mobile taken or disabled then. If she’d been suicidal the roommate wouldn’t have hesitated to call police._

“Tell me about the boyfriend,” he addressed the roommate, briefly looking away from the laptop.

She flinched but blinked rapidly as she gathered her thoughts. “Um, his name’s Daniel Kaminski. They broke up a week ago. She said it was mutual and I believed her. They hadn’t been dating long and it didn’t seem to be going anywhere, so I assumed he didn’t care. He wasn’t weird about it, you know, not like a guy who wanted to kidnap her would be. He didn’t bug her or show up at her work or anything.”

“Other than her disappearance, what makes you think she was kidnapped?” He casually flipped through her notes. Her study sheets and her internet history didn’t match; the notes on The Constitution of India and the web pages searching levels of South American drug cartels.

“It sounds paranoid but when I came in after my study group her laptop was blaring this old time rock music.”

Sherlock waited for further explanation.

She wrung her hands and looked around the room before realizing that the statement didn’t explain anything. “Oh! Well, Laila doesn’t listen to rock, she’s more into, you know, upbeat pop stuff. This was, darker. And it was turned up loud, which she would never do. Our neighbors are arseholes like that, and she hates it.”

Sherlock looked back to the laptop. “Did you close the music player?”

“Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have touched it, but at the time I didn’t realize anything was wrong yet.”

“Do you remember the song?” He asked as he re-opened the program to search its history.

“Oh, um, it was an older band. Eighties, seventies maybe…”

John spoke for the first time. “Hard rock or alternative?”

“Mmm, it wasn’t hard, really. Sort of a ballad actually. The band sounded familiar but I couldn’t tell you the name. I don’t know anyone who listens to that kind of music.”

“How about lyrics?” He asked next. “Do you remember what the song was about?”

“It was a woman’s name.” She nodded rapidly, feeling useful, her hands flapping as she tried to remember. Sherlock didn’t see how they were possibly going to work it out before he found it on the computer, but as long as they weren’t interfering in the investigation he’d let them play.

“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds?” John guessed.

The roommate scowled. “I know the Beatles,” she snapped at what she must have perceived as condescension. John held his hands up contritely. Sherlock felt a bit left out, but didn’t remark. He knew the band but not the song; best not to let that out.

“Beth by KISS maybe?”

“Mmm, no, it wasn’t Beth. Something like Vivian or…” She hummed in thought.

John lit up like a firework. “Oh! Vera Lynn! Pink Floyd? Right?” He then surprised the hell out of everybody by singing the song for the roommate in a beautiful tenor. The song was unfamiliar to Sherlock, unsurprisingly, but John’s voice gave him a new appreciation for eighties rock music.

The roommate lit up as well. “Yes! That’s the one!”

They congratulated each other, slapping hands in victory. Only a second later, John visibly sank. He turned toward Sherlock. “Oh no. He’s got her. We have to hurry.”

Sherlock turned away from the computer, glancing briefly at the play history. Pink Floyd’s The Wall right at the top of the list.

“Why do you say that?”

“The song. ‘Vera, Vera. What has become of you? Does anybody remember you?’ The lyrics are pretty suggestive. And if it’s not something she would listen to on her own…” The roommate shook her head in agreement. “It’s too obscure. It has to be a clue. Right?”

“Possibly,” Sherlock hedged, but he was already convinced of its significance. He turned to the roommate. “Where did they meet?”

“Jeez.” She blew on her fringe. “A football game I think. I can’t remember. Something about him being a friend of a friend, they went out as a group. I’m not really close with her other friends.”

“Would this be her poli-sci classmates or her _new_ friends?”

She blinked and Lestrade fidgeted, knowing Sherlock was about to crack the case. They made eye contact briefly.

“Um, the new ones.”

“As I suspected. You don’t like them much, do you? Bit rough around the edges?”

“I, uh, I try not to judge but… yeah, I suppose you could say that. She’s been faffing off a bit with this girl, Teresa. I think that’s why she’s been skipping class lately.”

Sherlock nodded. “Lestrade, fire up the golf cart. We’re going for a ride.”

He turned dramatically and marched out the door, leaving the rest to follow behind his flapping coat tails. They piled onto the campus security cart, Lestrade and Donovan in the front, Sherlock and John in the back. Lestrade asked after their destination as he started it up.

“The stadium. That’s where they have her.”

As Lestrade pulled away and the cart jerked forward, John moved to brace himself on the seat but his hand fell instead on Sherlock’s thigh. He pulled back faster than Sherlock could react, but the touch left Sherlock suddenly aware of the heat radiating all along his left side where John was pressed against him. John hung onto the handlebar on his right and steadfastly refused to look at Sherlock for the entirety of the ride, but he couldn’t help being so close in the too-small seat. It was dark, with only the passing streetlights and occasional window to illuminate the path, yet Sherlock could see John’s anxiety. The fact that he couldn’t deduce its source drove him mad. Was it being pressed against Sherlock, touching even if through several layers of clothing, or was it the case? Sherlock had assumed John would relish the chance to be useful in something as exciting as a missing person but maybe he wasn’t cut out for it…

John was off the back of the cart before it even stopped. “Let’s split up,” he barked. “We’ll cover more ground that way.”

He marched off toward the back but before he got far, before Sherlock had even realized he needed to close his mouth, Lestrade stopped him.

“Wait, hold up,” he called out as he unlocked the front gate. “We go in pairs. We’ve no idea how dangerous this situation might be. You go with Sherlock.”

John started to protest but Sherlock grabbed him by the back of his jacket and pulled him along.

“Come, John. I have the torch,” he said by way of validating Lestrade’s command.

John yanked himself away, mumbled about Sherlock having a Mary Poppins bag for a coat and shuffled off, hands in his pockets.

“Oi, Freak,” Sally called out. Sherlock stopped but didn’t turn. She took it as enough of an acknowledgment. “Don’t go taking the law into your own hands again, yeah? If you find them, don’t engage, just come find us.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he crooned mockingly. He could practically feel the narrowed eye on the back of his neck but he ignored her and moved on. Damn the woman. Sherlock meant to impress John, not to get belittled by a woman who carried a nightstick because her Daddy had ignored her during her  formative years.

They walked side by side up the poorly lit pathway a few moments before John spoke.

“What did she mean by that?” He asked quietly.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, though John couldn’t see.

“I’ve a habit of acting on my own accord when it comes to apprehending criminals. The last time I left a suspect hog tied in the garden out front of their office.”

“I meant, why’s she call you ‘Freak’.”

His head snapped down to stare at John, who immediately looked away. “Oh,” he huffed stupidly. “I suppose it’s not exactly a term of endearment, is it?”

“No, I wouldn’t think so.”

Sherlock gave a wan smile. “Let’s just say my motivation for helping campus security has never been to make friends.”

“I can’t imagine that’s ever your motivation for anything,” he quipped, eyes scanning the darkness for movement.

Sherlock wanted to argue that he wasn’t the one who decided not to pursue a… friendship, but again, he wasn’t supposed to remember any of that.  

“Not really, no,” he decided to quietly agree instead.

John held his hand out blindly and demanded, “Give me the torch. I’m blind as a bloody bat out here.”

Sherlock dug in his pocket until he could grasp the small torch he’d stashed and handed it over. “You know, bats aren’t actually blind, that’s a fallacy.”

“Fascinating,” John deadpanned. He was too busy hunting in the bushes, torch pointed stupidly in the window of the utility shack, to give the proper attention.

Sherlock frowned. “It is,” he entreated. “They primarily utilize echolocation, a far superior way of locating prey, but that doesn’t mean they don’t still see.”

“Uh huh,” John responded absently, rattling the locked door of the shack.

Sherlock’s arms crossed and he trudged along beside John, lacking the motivation to find the silly chit who’d stupidly tried to bring down a drug cartel by herself. She could be halfway to Columbia by now, like he cared.

“Are you going to help or not?” John snapped as he noted Sherlock leaning petulantly against the shack.

“Oh, for god’s sake, she’s in the toilets.” He waved toward the far end of the property.

John glanced over and back. “How the hell do you know that?”

“ _I_ didn’t kidnap her, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He frowned when John did. With a huff he threw himself forward and marched off toward the loo.

“How do you know she’s in the toilets then?” John challenged, skipping to catch up to Sherlock’s longer stride.

He could explain, were he so inclined. Perhaps he’d just let his intellect speak for itself. He was no longer sure he cared what John thought, why he’d bothered thinking he needed to impress him.

“C’mon. What makes you so sure?” John pressed.

Sherlock heaved a great sigh and gave in, his resolve not near as strong as it should be, would _need_ to be if they were going to continue to have any sort of tutor/student relationship. He’d have to work on that.

“She was pre-law, rule abiding, punctual, and hard working. Then she gets in with the wrong crowd, starts skipping class, starts seeing someone new, someone from ‘the wrong side of the tracks’ as it were.”

“So? It happens,” John strongly defended.

Sherlock was glad for the dark, because his smirk was uncontrollable.  He chewed on his lip to keep from laughing outright.

“Yes it does,” he agreed, “but I’ve seen her internet history. She was researching Columbian cartel hierarchy. And I happen to know heroin is making a comeback around town, mainly through the El Champo cartel. I believe she found evidence of a supplier on campus and decided to do a little undercover investigating of her own. The boyfriend is most likely innocent but whether or not he was involved, he’s to be the patsy for the cartel making an example of her. If we’re lucky they haven’t disfigured her-“

His running dialogue was interrupted by John making a beeline for the toilets at a rugby player’s sprint. Sherlock would be impressed if he wasn’t so insulted by the interruption.

He jogged, not nearly as fast, toward the building. It wouldn’t do to storm the premises without first making sure it was clear of drug dealers, so he did a circle around first. It had likely been hours since anyone but the girl had been near, but better safe than sorry. Since no call of alarm had been raised he’d have to assume the kidnapper was long gone. He could see John’s torch beam through the frosted glass window, and then heard his muffled voice, soothing and authoritative. He allowed a smug smile to tug at his lips since there was no one around to see it. It was good to be right. Not that he’d doubted himself for a minute but…

When Sherlock walked in, John was down on one knee where Ms. McCurdy was handcuffed to the drain pipe of the sink, trying his best to soothe her. The light from the torch, dropped to the floor when John had moved to help her, illuminated her stricken face, showing a ghastly black eye and dried tear tracks. John looked up when she gasped behind the rag shoved in her mouth. Her eyes were huge as she looked up at Sherlock in terror; rightfully so, Sherlock supposed. He _was_ a dark clad stranger from her perspective.

He shouldn’t have been surprised at John’s next move, but he was, he really was.

John, using the momentum from standing, plowed into Sherlock, who quickly found himself on his back, his head just barely missing the concrete floor as John came down on top of him. They grappled, Sherlock doing his best to restrain John, to keep his fists from finding their mark. It was blind fury on John’s part, inexact but still efficient, in a bar brawl sort of way.

Sherlock was actually having fun for a minute, until John caught him soundly on the cheek with a left hook and he cried out in shock.

“Sherlock?!” John bellowed. “Shit! Why didn’t you say something?”

He rolled away so Sherlock could sit up. He wasn’t sure if John could see his frown but he did his damnedest to broadcast it despite the near-perfect darkness.

“Who did you think you were attempting to pummel?” He asked, fingertips to his cheek.

“Attempting?” John countered incredulously. Then he gave a hiss and shook his hand out. “Ugh, I think I broke my knuckle.”

“As I said, attempting.” He glanced over at Ms. McCurdy when she grunted at them. He kicked John’s feet out of the way so he could stand and then fished his lock-picking set from his pocket.

She grunted again, apparently trying to indicate she’d like the rag removed from her mouth. He untied the knot at the back of her head, doing his best not to pull her hair out, and then gently pulled the cloth free.

She coughed, working her jaw several times before she growled, “Benson. Tyler Benson. It wasn’t Daniel.”

“I know,” Sherlock assured her. The cuffs were unlocked seconds later and her hands fell heavily into her lap. She heaved a grateful sigh at having mobility again.

“Tyler is bringing heroin in. I’ve got names, meeting places-“

“Yes,” Sherlock interrupted. “I know. Wait for the police, if you would. They’ll be able to help you better than I.”

“Oh. Yeah, of course.” She looked up at John, who hovered behind Sherlock’s shoulder. “Thank you. How did you find me? Tyler said I’d be here until Monday before anyone found me. I tried screaming but no one could hear.”

“It was obvious if you knew what you were looking for. I’m surprised you didn’t take his advice and keep quiet about what you discovered.”

“Fuck them,” she spit vehemently.

John snorted. Sherlock let out an answering chuckle.

“John, text Lestrade, won’t you? Let him know we’ve found Ms. McCurdy.”

“Yeah, I’d love to,” he said sarcastically, “except my hand is broken and I don’t even know his number.”

Sherlock stood to his full height and, with a dramatic sigh so John would understand his uselessness, quit the room to text Lestrade. John stayed behind to help Ms. McCurdy stand and stretch her tired limbs.

Minutes later, Lestrade and Donovan arrived with the police in tow. Sherlock stood aside and let John and Ms. McCurdy explain the details. Donovan took notes and Lestrade glanced at Sherlock, knowing he was doing his damnedest not to get roped into going to the police station for interrogation.

He watched as Lestrade pulled a first aid kit off of the security cart and snapped a cold pack for John to put across his knuckles. They both chuckled at something Lestrade said, whatever it was making John glance up at Sherlock with a smile. For some reason the easy camaraderie between the two set Sherlock’s blood to boiling.

He marched over. “Are we finished here?”

Lestrade glanced between them, looking contemplative. “Up to the police.”

They turned collectively to the closest officer, who, noticing the sudden attention, meandered over.

“What’s all this then?” The man questioned.

“The boys want to know if they’re okay to return to their homes, sir,” Lestrade informed him.

Sherlock made a study of looking as innocent as possible. John needn’t worry on that score; he radiated _well-meaning do-gooder_.

“Would you be pressing charges for the assault?” The officer asked Sherlock, nodding down to John’s injured fist.

Sherlock let out a snort, looking to John and Lestrade to see if they joined in on the joke. Neither seemed to find the situation as funny as he did. John even looked a mite worried, which was odd. Did he really think Sherlock would?

“No, sir, it was a misunderstanding, is all.”

“All right, then. I suppose you boys are free to go. If we need anything else we’ll call you.”

The two ‘boys’ nodded and set off at a leisurely pace for the road, neither speaking in the darkness until they reached the light of the posts.

“Thanks,” John mumbled, one hand rubbing his injured fist absently.

Sherlock snorted. “It _was_ a misunderstanding. Wasn’t it?”

He looked up to find Sherlock studying him. “What d’you mean?”

“You didn’t… You didn’t actually think I had anything to do with her kidnapping, did you?”

“No! Of course not! No, I swear. It was just too dark to see, my eyes hadn’t adjusted yet and she looked terrified and I just… I don’t know, I just reacted. I probably should have realized it was you sooner…”

“You were distracted with attempting badly aimed punches,” Sherlock teased.

He received a frown at that. “Not too badly aimed.” John reached out, like he wanted to touch Sherlock’s cheek, but Sherlock stepped away quickly and John’s hand fell back.

He rushed to fill the awkward silence of the intimate moment. “You have strength and speed but your technique could use some work. I could tutor you in boxing as well if you’d like.”

John glanced up, a suspicious glint in his eye. “You? You know how to box?”

“Yes,” he drawled, certain he should feel insulted. “Fencing too, if you’d like a go.”

“No, I think I’ll pass on that, thanks.”

They walked on silently for another moment. “Seriously, if you’d like, just a quick lesson on throwing a punch. Might come in handy.” Instantly, a voice, one he refused to acknowledge sounded like his brother, internally chastised, _stop trying to get him on the ground again, Sherlock, I know that’s what you’re up to._

“Can we wait until I get my hand checked out first? If it’s fractured it wouldn’t do to go and break it further.”

“Right,” Sherlock agreed. “Off to hospital then?”

“I was thinking just the campus clinic. I don’t think it’s too serious.”

Sherlock hesitated when they reached the crossroads. Left would take him back toward the tube line, and on to Baker Street. Right was toward the clinic where John was headed. He wasn’t sure of his welcome and didn’t want to intrude on the rest of John’s night uninvited and end up looking as pathetic as he felt.

John stopped as soon as he realized Sherlock was no longer beside him. “Aren’t you coming?”

Hope flared, though he did his best to contain it before it reached his face. “I-“

“I mean, I’m no Gentleman Jack but you are sporting a pretty hefty gash there,” he explained.

The reasonable explanation cooled Sherlock’s excitement somewhat. Of course John was just looking out for the injured; he was to become a doctor after all. It wasn’t for personal reasons. Feeling suddenly dejected, he was about to make his excuses- Mrs. Hudson could scrub it with alcohol when he got home- when John continued.

“It’s up to you. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than wait around for me to get x-rayed. I just thought it made sense, since I have to swing by your place again anyway for my stuff.”

 _Oh, what a lovely excuse!_ “Yes, I suppose I could keep you company for a while longer.”

John smiled and they walked on.

“That was quite the adventure back there. Thanks for letting me join.”

Sherlock snuck a glance at John. He seemed sincere but one had to be careful to avoid the pitfalls of sarcasm. He’d been duped before.

“Yeah?” He questioned vaguely.

“Oh, yeah. I mean, not for you, obviously, getting clocked for your troubles but… I mean the deductions and the way you just _knew_ where she would be and all that… Quite amazing really.”

Sherlock stared unabashedly. “You… Really?”

“Really what?” John asked, confused.

“You really think it was amazing?”

He scoffed and then gave a chuckle. “Well, yeah, obviously. It was extraordinary.”

A bubble of something hot twisted around in Sherlock’s gut and then fanned out inside him, from his toes to the tips of his ears.  He hadn’t believed for a second John would actually enjoy Sherlock showing off for him. He’d hoped of course, but this feeling…it was wonderful.

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself,” he eventually said with a small smile. “You made quite the valued assistant.”

“Me?” He glanced up, incredulous and perhaps a bit nervous.

“Yes, John. Your knowledge of popular music helped establish the kidnapper’s motive. As I have no such knowledge of my own that was quite helpful, and now I know you’re quick to act should the need for violence arise. Having someone with a passing medical knowledge would come in handy in the future as well.”

John had a look about him, confusion mixed with something like apprehension. “Are you asking me to be your partner?”

“What! No!” He backpedaled. “Why would you think that?” He was horrified he’d been so transparent and a little bit saddened to see John’s confusion on the subject.

“Well, you just said I fit the basic criteria for a sidekick, so I assumed…”

They stopped outside the 24 hour campus clinic doors and eyeballed each other in confused silence.

He processed the last two minutes again to see exactly where they’d gone off track. “You mean to say, like a crime fighting partner?” Sherlock eventually asked.

“Well yeah. What other kind-“ John’s eyes widened as the realization of what Sherlock had initially assumed became clear.

Sherlock wished a mound of dirt would roll over top of him and carry him away.

“Yes. A partner to help with my cases would be… it would be very helpful,” Sherlock eventually mumbled. His shoes took up most of his concentration as he waited for John to respond.

John could be seen in his peripheral vision, shuffling. “I’ve been thinking. Lately. I need to, uh, see about getting a job.”

“Oh.” He glanced up, feeling even more awkward with the turn in the conversation. “Well, I don’t have much to offer but-“

“No!” John shouted, startling them both. “I just meant to explain, my free time isn’t going to be open as it is now, if I find one. But… if you would still want, I could help on occasion. I mean, I wouldn’t mind helping.”

John was accepting the offer, even after that horrifically awkward misunderstanding? Miraculous. John Watson was a _miracle_ in a striped jumper.

“That would be… helpful,” Sherlock responded lamely, mentally flagellating himself. “Though, if you could find a place of employment that would allow for a flexible schedule to work around my own, that would be best.”

John shook his head with a chuckle but then he smiled up at Sherlock, close-lipped but with openly friendly eyes, and motioned for them to continue on into the clinic.

Sherlock sat along the wall and waited as John got signed in. He hated these places. It was a testament to how attached to John’s person he had become, just following him inside. He’d seen the inside of too many hospitals, and though this was a simple clinic, the smell of disinfectant and the brush of frigid air was the same. He pulled his arm off the seat rest when John came over with a clipboard of paperwork.

“This ought to be fun,” he grumbled as he tried to wrestle the pen with his injured hand.

Sherlock sighed and took the lot from him. “You dictate, I’ll write.”

“Yeah? Thanks!” He grinned like Sherlock had offered to be his personal slave for life, and the feeling it gave Sherlock did not bode well for their future. He could easily become as addicted to doing favours for this man as he already had at impressing him. He silently vowed never to do another thing for John as long as they both should live.

“Full name?”

“John H. Watson.”

Sherlock glanced up. “H?”

“Don’t ask,” he answered with a grimace.

“Fine,” Sherlock responded casually, already mentally going over what he’d need to break into the administrative office for John’s records. “Address?”

They went over the lot of the paperwork quickly, only stopping once, when it asked about recent tattoos.

“I should ask how recent is recent. Within six months, do you think?”

Sherlock purposefully kept his eyes averted. “I would assume six, yes.”

“Got this done almost a year ago,” he explained and began to shrug off his jacket and roll up the sleeves of his jumper to showcase the tattoo on his shoulder, the one that Sherlock already knew was there.

“Ah,” he casually responded. “I’m sure it’s fine.” He tried not to be obvious about studying it, but he was fascinated to see it under such close proximity. He’d only ever caught glimpses of it when John reached the stage of inebriation that he pulled his shirt off and started dancing. The clubs he frequented were usually too dark to make it out well and he’d always kept a strict distance between them on the dance floor.

“Royal Army Medical Corp,” John explained, though Sherlock already knew that as well.

He couldn’t help but to show off, a bit. “Your grandfather, the reason you decided to become a doctor for yourself, not just because your parents wanted it for you. You didn’t get the tattoo until you decided to become a writer instead, as a reminder that you could still remember your family history even if you didn’t fulfill that particular wish.”

John beamed, clearly impressed. “Wow, that’s just incredible, Sherlock.”

Christ, his heart went into overtime at that and he knew he was blushing like a school girl. There was no way John didn’t see, not under the bright fluorescent lights of the waiting room.

John cleared his throat and glanced back down at the paperwork. “You can mark no then. I’ll just make a point to bring it up with the doctor when I see them.”

“Right.”

They finished the paperwork and John walked it back to the desk clerk. On his way back he stopped to get a soda out of the vending machine, looking questioningly at Sherlock, who shook his head.

“Thanks for waiting with me,” John said as he sat back down with his grape fizzy drink.

“No problem. I’ve never had a sidekick before, figure it’s best to keep you in good physical condition or else I might not be allowed another one.”

John gave a snort and a sort of friendly bump with his knee. “Just because I’m the short one doesn’t make me the side kick. Partners, remember? Fifty, fifty split. You can be the brains, I’ll be the muscle.”

“After I teach you how to properly fight, you mean?” He teased.

“Piss off,” John replied easily, “you’re going to have a splendid bruise tomorrow and I’m quite proud of that.”

Sherlock palpated the sore area and grinned. John had done that. He was technically sporting John’s mark. How wonderful.

“So you’ve really never had an assistant before?”

John’s curiosity was well founded but it only reminded Sherlock how truly awful his schooldays had been. He could deny it until he was blue in the face, but lacking social skills had made Sherlock’s adolescence quite lonely.

“No,” he answered easily despite his feelings on the matter. “Sally Donovan isn’t exactly an outlier in her opinion of me. Most people couldn’t stomach the idea of being my assistant if I _were_ paying them.” He gave a self-deprecating smile.

John returned the smile with one of his own. “But you’re so accommodating,” he sarcastically responded. No pity, no disgust over Sherlock’s inability to blend in with humanity. It was refreshing, this teasing banter they’d seemed to fall into.

“Exactly.”

John’s smile didn’t abate as he fiddled with his drink, sloshing the liquid inside so that the carbonation gave a hiss.

“I take it that means you’re not seeing anyone then? Girlfriend, I mean.”

Sherlock was so taken aback by this turn in the conversation he almost laughed. Did John _really_ think Sherlock had a secret girlfriend tucked away somewhere?

John wouldn’t look at him, possibly nervous, possibly even dreading Sherlock’s answer. “No. Girlfriends… not really my area.”

John didn’t move a muscle, other than to trace the rim of the can with his thumb. “Oh. Boyfriend then?”

Was he going for casual? If so, he was failing. Sherlock wasn’t meant to have remembered their first encounter, he had to keep that in mind. Apparently this was John Watson fishing for clues as to his welcome. So what did Sherlock do with this? He wanted to snatch John up right there and snog him senseless, but he hadn’t yet decided if that was a good idea. Being around John, it was thrilling and new and John was a delightful puzzle he’d yet to fully put together, but he was also terrified if he took that step again, they would consume each other. It would be so easy. Not to mention, though he hadn’t the slightest idea about relationships in general, he knew he’d never be satisfied with anything casual with John. And since that seemed to be all John was capable of recently, there was no question that’s all he’d receive. So what to do? What to say?

“John,” he started softly, “I think I should probably explain, I consider myself…committed to my work and I don’t exactly foresee-“

“No! God, no, I wasn’t- I didn’t mean to-“

“It’s all right if you-“

“No, I was just asking, I didn’t mean-“

“No offence was taken I just-“

“Watson?” The nurse called out while John and Sherlock were busy talking over one another in their embarrassment. John glanced over in surprise, apparently having forgotten already where they were and why.

“I have to… I’ll just be a minute.” He got up awkwardly, seemingly unwilling to leave after such a debacle. “You’ll still wait, right?”

“Of course,” Sherlock nodded, “yes.” He didn’t want John to think he’d done something irreparable. Hell, if anything Sherlock had left his answer purposefully vague so as not to fully discourage him, but John hadn’t caught that, clearly. It seemed John was just as socially inept as Sherlock was. What a team they made.

John’s x-ray ended up taking something like an hour. Sherlock couldn’t stomach the wait, so he slipped into his mind palace to carefully record and store the night’s events. He desperately hoped tonight wouldn’t be their only case together, as John would indeed make an incredible assistant. He could just picture how amazing it would be to see John subdue a suspect, all his righteous kitten fury exploding onto some unsuspecting criminal.

“Hello,” John’s voice sang from somewhere outside Sherlock’s location. “Robin to Batman, come in Batman.”

“Hmm?” Sherlock blinked at the harshness of the waiting room lights, uncomfortable and somewhat dazed. His arse was bloody asleep in the plastic chair.

“Do you know you sleep with your eyes open? Bit creepy.”

Sherlock rubbed at his swollen eyes, bringing John into focus. “I wasn’t asleep. I was cataloging.”

John’s eyebrows went skeptical. “All right, if you say so.” He backed up so Sherlock could stand, and it was then that Sherlock noted the brace on his hand.

“Sprained?”

“Hairline fracture,” he informed. “I told them it was lucky, considering… well never mind. Doc says it should heal quickly as long as I don’t punch anyone or anything else.”

He easily deduced John was insinuating something about Sherlock’s face being the main culprit in John’s fracture but kept his mouth shut in case he inadvertently caused John to want to hit him again. He wanted John in top form if they were to begin boxing lessons.

“Ready?” He asked instead.

“Yeah. Oh,” he dug in his jacket pocket with his right hand, “I nicked this for you.”

Sherlock took the small square John held out and looked it over. It was an alcohol pad. “Thanks?”

“For the cut,” he explained with a vague hand motion. “Least I could do.”

Sherlock hesitated, unsure why there was a tension between them now. “Thank you,” he eventually said again, for lack of anything better to say.

They walked toward the door and Sherlock stopped for a brief second to dab at the cut in his reflection. It stung but not badly enough to discourage using the small gift. He felt vaguely as if he’d prefer John to have cleaned it for him, as if by right it _should_ be him, but he’d never presume. He did catch John staring though, just behind him in the door’s reflection.

“I was thinking while I waited for the doctor,” John began to say.

Sherlock tossed the now lightly spotted alcohol pad in the cigarette bin and casually turned to listen, as if his heart wasn’t racing in terror. John could have been thinking about anything, but balance of probability stated it had to do with their previous conversation.

“Do you really not know anything about Pink Floyd?” John asked.

Air escaped Sherlock’s lungs in a rush, and he was glad for the passing lorry with the bad rotors, as it masked the sound.

“Who?” He responded casually.

“Pink Floyd,” John repeated.

“Hmm, no, don’t know him. I’d hazard a guess… 20th century American Gangster?”

John burst into a fit of giggles, and like that, the tension of the previous minutes was gone. Sherlock hid a grin with the turn of his head.

“I believe you’re thinking of Pretty Boy Floyd, and no, I meant the band, you silly git. The one from the case we just solved not two hours ago.”

Of course he remembered the name of the band in question, if not anything about them, but it wouldn’t do to admit that to John just yet. Might scare him off completely. “ _We_ solved?” He teased.

“You did say I helped.”

“You helped a bit.”

“Um hmm,” John testily hummed. His voice rose up suddenly as he belted out, “Does anybody here remember Gwendolynn?”

Sherlock frowned, though he was tickled by John’s sly teasing. “I do believe her name was _Vivian_.”

John’s laugh echoed down the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They can just be friends, right? That's possible, isn't it? Just a pleasant working relationship...  
> They are just too cute, aren't they? *Squee*


	3. Do I Wanna Know?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John learns a few new things about Sherlock, some good, some bad, but finds regardless, he's in too deep to ever walk away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a lot of fun to write. The boys get into all kinds of hijinx in this one. For those waiting on more smut, there's a dab of masturbatory fun in this one. John finds it harder to abstain from the physical side than Sherlock. Or so he thinks...

One month later

John’s eyes flew open at nine am on the dot. His mobile screamed at him from the nightstand and he knew without looking that the text was from Sherlock.

He rolled and reached blindly for the phone.

_Baker Street immediately. I’m about to possibly melt my face off. SH_

John snickered, picturing Sherlock at the kitchen table, face melted off Ark of the Covenant style, and rolled back over onto his stomach.

 _Fire, radiation, or acid?_ he responded.

_All three. SH_

John laughed outright at that. His face fell into the pillow as he imagined Sherlock texting from the couch. It wouldn’t be the first time in the last four weeks Sherlock had lied to get John to rush over for something inane.

“Laila?” Bill’s voice questioned from his side of the room. It startled John, who hadn’t known his roommate was in residence.

“No. Why?” He asked, confused.

“Aren’t you guys seeing each other?” Bill was clearly more confused than John.

John sat up in bed to better see his friend. “No. She got me the job at the café, so we see each other at work a lot. I’ve helped her with some issues with an ex she had. We’ve had lunch together a few times, but dating? No.” It was a simplification of events but the truth was none of Bill’s business.

“Oh. So… uh,” he turned toward his dresser and continued to pull clothes out for the day, “the rumours true then?”

John’s blood ran cold. He’d dreaded this moment in particular, Bill finding out about his previous activities. He’d not been back to a club since he’d started running around with Sherlock, he barely had the time, but that hadn’t stopped people from talking about it. John didn’t think Bill was a homophobe but he was the most hetero bloke John had ever met and it stood to reason he was about to get an earful.

“What rumours?” He asked, trying for casual but failing by a wide margin.

“You know,” Bill shrugged, "about you blowing something like a hundred blokes in the last two months.”

John cringed. “It wasn’t a hundred,” he denied without thinking. Well, so much for skirting the issue. He couldn’t let that number stand, though. It couldn’t have been more than thirty, forty on the outside…

“I mean, regardless, it’s kinda fucked up.” Bill turned with a scowl and John's heart sank to see it. He’d really thought they were friends. If Bill couldn’t handle John’s sexuality it would be hard to even remain roommates.

“I’m sorry you think that,” John managed to reply. He fiddled with his comforter while Bill huffed. John’s phone buzzed at his hip but he ignored it.

“I mean, I know I’m not an obvious choice or anything but you never even offered, mate. That’s hurtful.” The dresser drawer was slammed with enough force to rattle the items on top.

John’s face scrunched up in confusion. “What?”

Bill’s arms went wide, shower caddy swinging. “Am I not hot enough? I’ve had offers before, you know.”

“Are you…" John stared at Bill in unrestrained bewilderment. "Are you mad because I _haven’t_ tried to pull you?” 

“Wouldn’t you be?” He questioned back angrily. “I kinda think you owe me, really.”

They continued to stare at each other until Bill finally cracked and let out a great guffaw. John growled and threw a pillow at him, which Bill caught easily, though he had to drop everything in his arms to do it.

“You utter shit!" John cried. "I thought I was going to have to move out and then I thought I was going to have to blow you to stay. You fucking arsehole.”

Bill looked ready to pass out from laughing, his face gone red and doubled up over John’s pillow. “You should have seen- Oh, god, your face!”

“You can fuck right off, mate,” John snapped, but he was laughing now too.

Bill wiped a tear away. “Sorry, I had to. I mean, Christ, you acted like it was this great secret. Did you really think I’d give a shit?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, “I guess I assumed because you’re the biggest whore for birds I’ve ever seen that you’d be uncomfortable with it.”

He received a snort at that. “Apparently I never told you about my two dads, or my gay cousin David or my bisexual mate from secondary school…”

“No, apparently not,” John drawled with a side eye. “Unbelievable. I’ll never trust you again.”

“I mean if your _want_ to blow me I’m not gonna stop you-“

“Agh! Get the fuck out!” John stood and shoved Bill’s clothes and shower caddy into his chest. He caught them with another great hyena cackle and continue to laugh as John pushed him out into the hall.

John, admittedly, wasn't as angry as he let on.  It was a great relief, it felt like, to not have to hide from Bill at least.

 _Buzz buzz_ , went his phone again and he rolled his eyes.

“Impatient git,” he mumbled as he dug around in the blankets for the mobile.

_I’m serious. If you want to see my visage one last time before I ruin it for good you’d better hurry. SH_

_Here I go John. There’s nothing to be done now I’m afraid. SH_

_Goodbye modeling career. SH_

John's hand fell to his side as he snickered uncontrollably. 

_I know what you're doing._

_Yes, I’ve said. Melting my face off. SH_

_Pretty pathetic attempt to stop me from punching your lights out, if you ask me._

_You missed it, because you’re taking your sweet time getting here, but I’ve rolled my eyes so far into my skull that they’ve stuck. Come help. SH_

John’s daily mantra of ‘ _He’s annoying and you hate him'_ , didn’t stick, even, or especially, when Sherlock was pulling shit like this.

_I’m getting ready, you git, give me some fucking time to get there. If you think I’ve forgotten our appointment you’re sorely mistaken. I’ve been waiting weeks to punch you again._

_I’ll be here, shaking in my_ _£800_ _Italian loafers. SH_

“Oh, I’m going to enjoy this,” he muttered as he set his phone down to get dressed.

Twenty minutes later John was sprinting up the steps to 221B Baker Street. He found Sherlock standing in the middle of the sitting room, barefoot, in his ratty sleepwear, the bastard.

“Mrs. Hudson out?” John asked as he shed his jacket and tossed it.

“Yep,” Sherlock growled.

Without warning John raced around the table in front of the sofa, leapt over the red upholstered chair ( _his_ chair, as he’d come to think of it) when Sherlock ran toward the kitchen, and they met in the doorway. John took the first swing, which of course Sherlock ducked. He came up and planted a fist into John’s stomach. John coughed out all his air but managed to shoulder Sherlock into the kitchen table before he could finish his attempt at planting his elbow into John’s back.

“Mind the glass!” Sherlock yelled but John ignored him in favour of pushing harder into his diaphragm and stomping on his right foot.

He snarled at the cheap shot, snatched John by his shirt and threw him into the opposite wall. The curio cupboard rattled with the force, and John snarled right back. Sherlock’s infuriating grin sent him over the edge and he ran at him again. This time he anticipated John’s move and simply moved out of the way, damn near tripping John into the doorway. The door hit the wall as John braced himself on it.

As soon as he turned to confront Sherlock again, he got a punch to the jaw for his troubles. His head snapped to the side, pain radiating from the impact. John swore if any of his teeth were loose he’d choke Sherlock to death.

The prat kindly gave him a moment to assess the damage - seemed to be minimal; possibly a small cut on the inside of his mouth if the taste of blood was anything to go on - before he advanced again.

He took another swing but John was ready this time and batted his arm away. Sherlock scowled but advanced again. John danced out of the way, backing further into the sitting room.

“You really should just concede, John,” Sherlock spoke with the confidence of one used to getting his way.

“Never,” he snarled and tried for a jab.

Sherlock easily avoided it, which annoyed John to no end.

“Where did you learn to fight? Primary school?” Sherlock taunted, bouncing on his toes like a damn kangaroo.

John sniffed. “I used to fight my sister over the telly remote. Watch out, I might pull your hair next.”

“That would be a terrible mistake on your part,” he growled.

John charged with a cry that would have done his Scottish ancestors proud. They went arse over teakettle over the coffee table, scattering books and an ashtray. John clipped Sherlock on the chin once but his wrists were pinned seconds later. One long leg wrapped around his and spun them into the underside of the table; John in turn bucked up, upending the whole thing, and wrenched away with a snarl. He ignored the way his wrists burned after being twisted out of Sherlock’s grip and went back on the offensive, throwing wild punches and hoping for the best. Mostly he just ended up punching Sherlock’s forearms as he blocked but it still felt good to land a few blows.

Sherlock growled in frustration, apparently having had enough, and brought his knee up, hard, into John’s soft bits.

Except, previously unnoticed by John, some of his bits weren’t exactly soft, so the impact was doubly shocking.

He rolled into a ball as pain radiated up into his body from his mangled cock and balls. “Why, god?” He coughed.

Sherlock snorted. “If you’re going to fight like a street urchin, I’m not above a few dirty tactics.”

John soon found Sherlock’s forearm around his throat, as Sherlock pulled him out of his foetal position. The pressure increased; no matter how hard John pulled, Sherlock’s arm wouldn’t budge. A small part of John’s brain, the part he’d been avoiding lately, noted the definition in Sherlock’s arm as John scrambled for a purchase.

“Give up?” Sherlock asked congenially.

“Never,” John struggled to voice despite his startling lack of air. He thrashed but it only caused Sherlock to pull back harder. John was starting to understand that Sherlock wasn’t going to let go until John either surrendered or passed out. So he surrendered his dignity instead, and snatched Sherlock by his hair.

“Agh!” John heard Sherlock's cry, muffled against the sound of his own pulse, and then suddenly he was free to suck in great lungfuls of air. He was dizzy with the influx of oxygen, so he didn’t quite register that Sherlock had thrown him to the side and had scrambled away until he heard a door slam down the hall.

“And don’t come back!” John tried, and almost succeeded, to call out. Mostly he just coughed a lot, curled up on the floor next to the over turned coffee table.

After he was able to breath normally again, John rolled, stared up at the ceiling, and wondered if he’d technically won or not. He hadn’t exactly beaten Sherlock in a boxing match. The rules stated he needed to either KO Sherlock or get him to tap out. Neither had happened, so where did that leave them? He’d definitely given up.

“Cause you pulled his hair like a girl,” he muttered to himself as he adjusted his cock to a more comfortable position in his trousers. It was still rock hard. “Blast.”

He needed to get it under control. How much longer could he hide his almost daily reaction to Sherlock’s presence? He’d been so sure he could end the stupid fighting debacle by a clean win. He’d _needed_ to win, so Sherlock would give up the idea that he needed to train him. That way lay madness. Daily sparring matches? He’d never survive.

Eventually he rolled to a sitting position and leant up against the sofa, knees up, patiently waiting for Sherlock to come back. What the hell was he doing, anyway?

“Sherlock? Come back, I won’t pull your hair again,” he called out with a laugh.

When no reply came he got up and walked slowly into the hall. He wasn’t sure if Sherlock was in the loo or his room so he stopped between the two.

“Sherlock?” He called, a bit quieter.

“Go away!” The reply came from his room.

John moved to in front of the door and leaned in, carefully putting an ear to the wood. All was quiet. His brow wrinkled in confusion as he tried to puzzle out what had happened.

“Are you all right? I’m sorry if I really hurt you. You can get me back if you want.”

A groan, possibly of frustration. “No! Go away!”

“What is the matter with you?” He wondered aloud, not really expecting a response.

“I’m upset, leave me be! Can’t a man have a cry in peace?”

‘Crying?’ John mouthed silently in confusion. Why in the bloody hell would he be crying? He clearly wasn’t. Yes, his voice did sound shaky but if he really was it was highly unlikely he would admit to it. John thought back to a moment, about five years back, when his sister had almost burst into his room while he was watching How to Make an American Quilt on the telly. He actually _had_ been crying, to his everlasting embarrassment, so he’d screamed that he was masturbating so she’d leave him alone. It had worked, obviously, but he had to wonder if the same idea applied here. Only backwards…

“Sherlock…” He tried again, quietly, with his ear pressed to the door again, desperate for some hint as to the nature of the activities within.

“I’ll be fine in a minute. Please. Just… give me a minute.”

“All right,” he assured, “I’ll be out here.”

If he only had a minute, he had to be quick. It was risky but he had to, there were too many images flickering behind John’s eyes now to calm his raging body. The loo would have been more secure but there was a damn frosted glass door separating the rooms. That wouldn’t do at all.

He casually made his way into the kitchen and, once out of sight, fell against the wall and quickly unbuttoned and unzipped his trousers. It wouldn’t take much, no, not much at all.

Staying quiet, on the other hand…

“Unn,” he groaned. Horrified, he jammed his free hand into his mouth. Had to be quick, had to hurry.

He sped his hand up, rolling his foreskin quickly over top of the head, over and over. He pictured Sherlock as he’d looked that first night, heaving and desperate. It wasn’t enough, visceral as the image was, because he’d tossed off to the memory a hundred times already. He needed something new. The feel of Sherlock's forearm pinning John against him as they thrashed. The very real possibility that Sherlock was at that moment tossing off to the same heated moment. John breathed out a steady stream of hot air through his nose as fire spread across his skin at the thought. Was it pulling Sherlock's hair? Was that what had set him off? Oh, he’d do it again in a heartbeat if allowed. John only wished he’d known then what kind of reaction it would garner, he’d have paid closer attention.

John stared at the kitchen table, with Sherlock’s chemistry sets, his microscope, the old mugs of tea Mrs. Hudson hadn’t cleared away for him, and, god help him, John pictured sweeping all of it aside and pinning Sherlock down with his fist in those dark curls.

Yep. That did it.

His blood left the rest of his body and pooled, hot and thick, at the base of his spine.

“Fuck, oh, fuck,” he breathed out harshly. He was practically strangling the end of his cock as he came, bent double, arse against the wall. “Ah, dammit.”

He’d come all over the sodding floor. _Idiot!_

He tucked himself away, despite his still sensitive skin, scrambled for the dish flannel next to the microwave and fell immediately to scrub at the floor; his heart beating a heavy tattoo in his chest from the flood of adrenaline. He hadn’t come that hard in a while, the mix of wank material and the idea that Sherlock could have exited his bedroom at any time had ramped up his arousal. _Still could come out anytime_ , John thought, which pushed him to scrub harder.

Once it was clean as it was going to get, John chucked the rag under the sink, knowing full well Sherlock would never look under there since it was full of nothing but cleaning supplies. Mrs. Hudson on the other hand…

He rushed to fish it back out, deciding instead to throw it into the sink and run water over it.

“Sherlock! I’m going to make tea! Do you want some?” He yelled out, scrubbing at the cloth.

After a beat, “yes, please,” came the muffled reply.

He rung out the flannel and then set about actually preparing the kettle. His nerves made the task harder than it had to, with his fingers going clumsy and his wrist actually giving a twinge.

“Perfect timing,” John mumbled when he heard Sherlock finally come out of his room. He tried not to make a storybook of his face, but it was hard not to react to the fact that Sherlock had changed into his day wear- bloody bespoke, posh attire that probably cost more than John’s entire education. He also tried not to see it as a clue as to Sherlock’s possible activities, as it might as well just be his way of donning armour after feeling vulnerable.

_Or maybe he came all over himself…_

John’s hand over shot and he tipped the sugar over on the counter. “Oh, piss!” He scrambled to right it; somewhat ironically scooping the spillage into the sink with the dirty flannel. He took a steadying breath, and swore, once again, to keep a cool head in the face of his instinctive craving for the git standing behind him.

“Thank you,” Sherlock muttered when John passed him the mug with the STEM logo on it.

“Yeah, course,” he answered and moved to sit at the table.

He surreptitiously glanced up at Sherlock through his eyelashes as he sat as well. He didn’t look flushed, which would have been obvious on his pale face, but then again, he’d been hidden away for quite a while.

Sherlock glanced up from his mug and John immediately looked down at his own. As soon as John’s lips brushed the rim to take a sip he hissed. Forgotten pain stung his bottom lip; apparently Sherlock _had_ hit him hard enough to cut on his teeth. He tongued the sore tissue and again tasted blood.

“Sorry,” Sherlock whispered quietly.

It was out of character for him to be so hesitant, and John didn’t like it at all.

“No you’re not,” he teased. “You’re never sorry when you know you’re right.”

Sherlock’s eyebrows rose high but then fell again as soon as he realized John was letting him claim victory. His shoulders went back as he straightened in his seat. John had to stamp down on the instinct to grin.

“Yes, well, perhaps someday you’ll simply take my word for it.”

“Hmm, perhaps. Someday.”

They shared a small smile. Neither was fooling the other, that much was clear, but John did have to concede that he wasn’t exactly a world class boxer. He’d only won by the skin of his teeth, by accidently finding a chink in Sherlock’s armor.

“Shall we add boxing to the list of lessons then?” Sherlock asked.

John gave a great, put upon sigh, one that put Sherlock’s to shame, but smiled all the while. “I suppose. I’ll get to knock you around some more at any rate, that’s quite an incentive.”

Sherlock’s lips pressed together. “John,” he hedged, shifting in his seat, “I do have one stipulation.”

“Yeah?” He responded, as hesitant, if not more so, to avoid the possibly awkward conversation. Sherlock had already warned him off at least once. Twice if one counted the note he’d left after grabbing his coat, which John did.

“I don’t believe you need any help with your ground game, such as it is. If we could stick to hand to hand combat, that would be preferable.”

So bloody proper. Sometimes John hated the reminder of how many stations Sherlock was above him.  He could truss the words up all he liked, all John heard was: ‘If you could not sully a perfectly decent boxing lesson with your untoward advances, that would be great.’ Didn’t matter that John hadn’t meant to do anything untoward, it was still apparently a forbidden avenue. Yeah, all right, he’d had a wide on the whole time but that was… it was… well there wasn’t really a valid excuse for that. He was excited. But the reminder that Sherlock was off-limits still stung. He wanted some way to convince Sherlock that he’d gotten better since their last encounter, if that’s why he was no longer interested. Or if he was upset over what they’d done while Sherlock was high, he would love the chance to apologize, at the very least. But what did he say after having been told Sherlock had deleted the entire affair? Knowing that blow jobs ranked up there on Sherlock’s list of unneeded information alongside tabloid celebrities and how to run a vacuum, it was a blow to one’s self esteem.

 _He did delete the solar system too, though_ , John reminded himself again.

“John?” Sherlock looked at him quizzically.

“Yeah, sorry. Yeah, that’s fine. Wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

Sherlock looked at him with something between smugness and a frown.

A knock broke their staring contest, followed by a familiar, “Hoo, hoo.”

“Yes, Mrs. Hudson?”

“Oh!” She exclaimed. “What happened in here?" they heard her shuffling past the detritus left over from the flipped over coffee table.

John was shocked when, by the time Mrs. Hudson came around the corner, Sherlock had already conjured real tears with which to deliver a heartfelt, “We were attacked! It was awful!”

Her eyes went wide and her hand came up, but before she could remark, John was already leaning over in his seat far enough to sock Sherlock in his shoulder, hard enough to nearly eject him from his chair.

“You liar,” he announced with a chuckle when Sherlock burst out laughing. “He’s lying, Mrs. H, we were practice boxing and… well, it got a bit out of hand. We’ll clean it up. ”

“Oh, you!” Mrs. Hudson’s hands came down on her hips, the very picture of scolding, before whacking Sherlock on the arm. He flinched away from the blow with a chuckle, though it couldn’t have fell hard enough to move dust.

“Sorry,” he said, wiping a tear from his eye.

“You boys, I swear. You’re going to put me in an early grave. One of these days I’m just going to keel right over, and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”

“Nonsense,” Sherlock stated, beaming up at her, “England would surely fall.”

The clear fondness on Sherlock’s face seemed to have the same effect on John and Mrs. Hudson both. She smiled down at him, placed a kiss in his curls, and  squeezed his shoulder.

“You’re half right. Your brother would scowl over my casket until I rose again, just to scold me for leaving you alone.”

“Too right,” he agreed with a quirk of his eyebrow. He glanced at John and took a sip of his tea.

They shared a look. Sherlock knew damn well John hadn’t ever heard of this mystery brother before, but he was silently asking for the questions to wait until Mrs. Hudson left. He’d wait not a second more.

“Have you boys eaten? I was going to do a fry up.”

John perked up at that, though he felt sort of bad about allowing her to feed them. She was forever reminding them that she wasn’t the housekeeper but then usually following it up with something a housekeeper _would_ do. Conflicting.

“It seems John will partake,” Sherlock teased.

“Oh, hush. If somebody hadn’t woke me up and practically cried until I showed up-”

Eyes were rolled heavenward. “I did not cry.”

“Did so,” John argued, sipping his own lukewarm tea despite his injury. “I would have eaten breakfast if not.”

He glanced up at Mrs. Hudson, who was watching them with a look - a fond one, but with a hint of hope in it that twisted John’s guts.

“Is that a yes for you then, John?” She asked when their eyes caught.

He cleared his throat and looked down at his mug. “Yes, please. If you were going to cook anyway, that is.”

“Of course, dear. I’ll bring you up a bag of peas, too, for your lip. Sherlock,” she admonished, “for shame.”

Sherlock just snickered behind his mug.

“You are terrible,” he scolded Sherlock, after Mrs. Hudson made her way downstairs. “She very well might have a heart attack living downstairs from you.”

“As if I would revel in giving her a fright if I thought that a possibility. She’s as healthy as an ox, ‘cept for the bum hip, perhaps.”

John scowled anyway. They rested comfortably for a moment, Sherlock clearly anticipating the question, which was the only reason John didn’t blurt it out right away.  

Rather than continue to wait, Sherlock spoke without prompting. “Mycroft, my elder brother. He’s my legal guardian while I’m staying in London. My parents travel a lot, you see.”

“Ah,” John huffed.

Sherlock gave a shrug. “Not much more to tell than that.”

But the way he casually traced the rim of his mug with a finger spoke of a different story. John felt the itch to ask more but he didn’t know what, and he also was always on alert for any behavior that might be construed as prying for more than Sherlock was willing to give. If this _Mycroft -_ Christ, could their family be any more pretentious - came up again in conversation, so be it. He would settle for being satisfied that Sherlock did have family to look out for him, absent though they seemed to be.

“Do you have to work tonight?” Sherlock asked.

“Uh, yeah, I’m closing? Why? Got a case?”

Sherlock glanced up briefly but then right back down. “No, I was just wondering.”

John tried not to smile and failed. “Going to be bored, then?”

He deflated. “Yes. I haven’t had a proper case in weeks. That bit with the,” he waved his hand, “what do you call it? With the sticks and the horses?”

“Women’s polo? That one?”

“Yes, that bit. They were just being pranked by the men’s team. Obvious.”

John hummed. “That explains why the men’s locker room was covered in tampons yesterday.”

Sherlock sat up at that and eyed John like he’d suddenly sprouted wings. “Why were you in the men’s locker room? You quit rugby.”

John chuckled at Sherlock’s blatant curiosity. “I wasn’t. Bill was. Or I should say, Bill was not, since not one of them would cross the threshold until the custodian cleared it all out. They weren’t even used.” He scoffed again at the fragile idiots.

“Your superiority stems from growing up with a sister who ignored most common social cues,” Sherlock stated after looking him up and down.

“Maybe so,” he allowed, “but I’d like to think cotton wrapped in plastic wouldn’t ward me off like a vampire looking at a cross, regardless of Harry or not.”

Mrs. Hudson walked back in and handed John a bag of frozen peas. “Here you go, John.”

Ice would have done the trick just as well but he was too polite to say. “Thank you. Next time you’ll have to have a steak ready for Sherlock’s eye.”

The two boys stared off at each other as Mrs. Hudson tittered.

Sherlock took a deep breath and, without breaking from John’s stare, said, “I don’t believe Mrs. Hudson has ever used a tampon. Before her time, as it were. Isn’t that right?” He then looked up at her as if he’d asked ‘Do you use oregano in your pasta sauce?’

She looked down at him for about three seconds before she turned around without a word and marched off to finish the fry up, presumably.

“I’m not sure if I believe in hell,” John announced, “but if there is one-“

“Pfft,” Sherlock waved off.

John shook his head, amused despite himself.

“You never speak of your roommate. Why is that?”

John glanced up, surprised at the question. Sherlock didn’t seem like the type to care, as evident by his lack of curiosity up to that point. Perhaps they were crossing further into a more normal type of friendship, if that’s what it was.

“Um, no, I suppose not. I don’t know why, not much to tell, I guess.” He finished off his now cold tea and stood to put the mug up. Sherlock hadn’t finished his so John left it be.

“But you get on. Were probably closer before you quit rugby but he didn’t begrudge you that. Why don’t you go out together more?”

John opened his mouth but wasn’t sure what to say; he was thrown by the sudden inquiry. Remembering the bag of peas, he gently rested it against his lip.

“I- I don’t know. I mean, yeah, we get on, but he’s… I don’t know, he’s kind of loud, to be honest. And he’s mostly off with some girl.” At this Sherlock seemed to relax.

“So friendly, but not close?”

“I could have easily beat him to death this morning, so I don’t know about friendly,” he muttered with a laugh, and then instantly realized his mistake when Sherlock asked-

“Why?”

John shrugged casually. “Just being a dickhead. It wasn’t a big deal.”

Sherlock tapped his fingers on the counter. “Working with Lisa tonight?”

John blinked at that rapid subject change, but did his best not to visibly relax after avoiding the absolute fucking minefield that had been his conversation with Bill that morning.

“It’s _Laila_ , and yes. Why? Her case is over, right?”

“Yes, unless there’s something she shared with you and not me.”

Christ, why did he sound so accusing? “No. She said she’s on good terms with Daniel again after the police questioned him, I guess. She swears he’s not a part of the drug ring.” He shrugged. None of his business.

“Oh, so they’re dating again?”

“Uh, no. Just friends.”

Sherlock stood, a bit abruptly, and took his cup to the sink to set it next to John’s. John turned in his chair to watch him move about the kitchen.

“Why do you care?” He had to ask. It wasn’t like Sherlock to ask after the local populace, unless it pertained to a case. Of which, granted, John had only been a part of a few, but it still seemed strange.

“Just making conversation, John. Isn’t that what normal people do?”

He snorted. “Yeah, but you’re not normal.”

Sherlock gave a tight lipped smile and moved into the sitting room.

“Hey,” John got up to follow, “I didn’t mean that in a bad way. I like that you’re weird,” he admitted.

Sherlock stopped on his way to the coffee table and half turned. If he was going to respond John never found out because Mrs. Hudson yelled up that breakfast was done.

Sherlock didn’t seem to care so John hesitated in the doorway for an uncomfortable few seconds.

“Not coming down, then?” He asked.

“No, you go ahead. I’m not hungry. I’ll just…” He waved at the mess at his feet.

“I’ll help if you wait,” John offered, feeling guilty. He hoped nothing was broken.

Sherlock shook his head. “It’s fine. Go ahead.”

It seemed John didn’t have much of a choice. Something had happened during the course of their conversation. What, he didn’t know, but it had driven a wedge in their already uncomfortable morning.

“I’ll just be downstairs then.” He nodded, though Sherlock wasn’t even looking, and made his way down to 221A.

He’d been to Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen a few times in the month he and Sherlock had been friends, mostly to raid her fridge while she was gone, so he was comfortable traversing the flat without Sherlock at his side. Plus it was easy to follow the mouthwatering smells. He was quite hungry.

“Have a seat, dear,” she suggested absently, waving a pot holder. Though she’d invited the both of them, she wasn’t surprised not to see Sherlock. She knew him well, apparently; knew the bloke didn’t eat enough to keep a bird alive.

“Thanks for this.”

She grinned, setting down his plate in front of him. “Of course. I hardly get to cook a full meal for you-know-who. Tin of biscuits might disappear in the night, but you know.” She shrugged, the _what can you do_ going unsaid.

“I’m going to do some research when I get back to the dorm. I think you might be up for an award of some kind,” John quipped around his fried egg.

She giggled. “It’s nothing, really. He’s quite… something. Once you get to know him.”

John didn’t have a single thing to say to that, so he busied himself with eating.

“I’m glad you two found each other actually.” John choked on his milk but she went on. “You’re quite good for him, despite the messes you get into.”

He glanced up cautiously. “Mrs. H… You know we’re not- that we’re just friends, right?”

Her answering smile might as well have been a saucy wink and a nudge. He let out a weary sigh and started to explain further but she held up a hand.

“It’s none of my business, John, really. As long as he comes home at night, stays busy, and doesn’t blow up my building I rarely have a complaint. I just thought you should know. I approve completely.”

Well, what did he say to that? Thanks? Too agreeable to her assumptions. Deny again? Doth protest too much. Silence seemed like a confirmation in itself.

A thought, a conclusion, he’d come to in the passing weeks, graced his mind, one that had formed in the absence of the mysterious ‘Victor’ or any other visitors, besides students in and out to get tutored and clients seeking aid.

“I’m his only friend, aren’t I?”

Mrs. Hudson smiled sadly. “Yes, dear, you are.”

~*~

That hateful bell. John didn’t know how much longer he could take it. Laila and the rest of the crew at Kafé Kerouac swore that eventually he’d learn to tune it out but it had been a week and a half and he was still cringing every time it went off. A real bell he might have handled but the cacophony of electronic dings and whistles together was hell on his ears. He thought about splashing hot coffee on his face about once every seven minutes.

“Welcome to Kafé Kerouac. What can I get you?” He asked the next customer in line, with a pleasant smile.

“Large Non-Fat Mocha Frappe with a shot of raspberry and a chocolate-chocolate chip scone. Please.”

He punched in the girl’s order, processed the transaction, and pushed the receipt along to Beth, the barista.

Twenty more minutes until closing. Hallelujah.

His mobile buzzed in his apron, a text. He glanced around before sliding it out enough to see who it was from. Sherlock, of course, who else? He put it away but curiosity, and boredom, eventually found his thumb swiping the message open.

_Don’t come to Baker Street tonight. I’m experimenting with noxious fumes and if I die somebody has to survive me to make sure my brother doesn’t get my body. SH_

John shook his head with a smile. It was good to see all was forgiven apparently, since Sherlock only threatened to do bodily harm to himself when he wanted John to come over. He’d left Mrs. Hudson’s that morning to find Sherlock gone from the flat. No word, his coat and shoes missing. It wasn’t the first time he’d taken flight without telling John, but it _was_ the first time after such a tense conversation.

He crouched down behind the counter, as if he were stacking paper cups, and typed back.

_What about Mrs. Hudson? Or are you planning on taking her out with you?_

_Don’t be ridiculous. Hydrogen Fluoride is lighter than air, it wouldn’t reach her flat before it dissipated. I just meant somebody with a stronger constitution than hers would have to see my wishes fulfilled. SH_

_He’s annoying and you hate him,_ he intoned silently with a grin.

He typed back, _How was I to know what gas you were working with?_

And then upon second thought, _Please don’t kill yourself anytime soon btw. Free boxing and Biology lessons don’t come around every day you know._

_Should you have need, Mike Stamford can be of assistance. I’ve taught him everything I know. SH_

_I’m not hitting a kid with glasses._

_I meant in Biology. But feel free to take a swing at him too. Couldn’t hurt. SH_

John giggled down at his phone.

And then almost chucked it into the air when from behind him Laila yelled at the customers, “We’re closing in ten minutes, ladies and gentlemen. Wrap it up.”

He scrambled to pocket his phone and stand before she rounded the corner.

“John,” she greeted with a smile, as if they hadn’t seen each other an hour ago, before she left for the kitchen to mix tomorrow’s scone batch. 

“Yeah, Laila, all right?” He replied as his pocked buzzed another text.

“Yeah.” She tucked a curl behind her ear and smiled shyly.

 _Uh oh_ , John thought, _here it comes again_.

“Listen, I know you said you were busy with studying and helping Sherlock, but I was thinking, if you just let me know whenever a good time is for you, we might try out that new Thai place in Hoxton, the one Gail was telling me about. What do you think?”

Dread flooded John’s system. She hadn’t actually come out and asked him on a date yet; she’d hinted at the idea, but this was pretty hard to be diplomatic about. By all accounts he should be jumping at the offer. Laila was smart, beautiful, ambitious without the control issues Mary seemed to have had, and they had a lot in common as far as background and future plans were concerned. And he already knew she was brave, as evident by her experience with the Colombian cartel.

And yet…

“I… I don’t know actually, Laila. I just got out of a semi-serious relationship-"

“With Mary Morstan. I know. You guys were in my poli-sci class. Well, Mary still is obviously.”

“Really? I-" He was about to say he didn’t remember her but that seemed rude.

She smiled like she caught his meaning anyway.

“It’s fine. You seemed pretty zoned out during class usually. I assumed it was hangovers but then you switched to pre-med…”

“Yeah, politics, not really my thing.” He watched as the last customer gathered up their belongings and shuffled out the door. Beth followed behind to lock up.

“I get it. I mean, if it’s too soon, or whatever. No pressure.” She rubbed at the tip of her nose nervously. “Gail was saying she heard a rumor.”

John ignored the third buzz of his mobile as he chewed on the inside of his cheek. The second time today someone was going to confront him, and dammit if he wasn’t exhausted already.

“Yeah, it’s true,” he cut her off at the pass.

Her eyes snapped to his. “Really?” He nodded until she blurted out, “A hundred and fifty!”

“What! No!”

“Oh, thank god,” she braced one hand on the counter, the other over her heart. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, bisexual guys are hot but a hundred and fifty? That, my friend, is ridiculous.”

“I honestly don’t know where these numbers are coming from. My roommate quoted it at a hundred this morning. It’s mortifying.”

She giggled. “It’s not though, because he was probably impressed, whereas if _I_ had sucked a hundred and fifty cocks I’d have been burnt at the stake.”

He couldn’t help but laugh along with that. “Double standards, right? Bunch of bollocks.”

“Right?” She toyed with a strand of her hair. “You know you could have just said, if that was the reason. You know, my not having the preferred bits, and that.”

“No! No, Laila, your… bits… are fine, I’m sure.” They laughed at that. “It’s just that I’m… I’m trying to sort out- Oh, for fuck’s sake!” He reached into his apron and answered his phone when it became clear he was receiving a call and not a text. “What!”

“If you didn’t want to come over that’s all you had to say!” Sherlock snapped and then hung up on him.

John stared at his phone for five seconds before putting it back in his pocket with a sigh.

“Sherlock?” Laila guessed dryly.

“Yeah, he’s being a- no!” He exclaimed at her knowing slow blink. “We’re not- he’s not- it’s not like that, we’re just mates.”

Her knowing smile could have rivaled Mrs. Hudson’s. She reached out and patted his hand. “It’s fine, John. I get it. You’re good to go for the night, by the way. I’ll count the drawers.”

“You’re sure?” He hesitated to leave on that note, but yet again, he’d been backed into an impossible corner.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” she waved him on, “go. Tell Sherlock I said hi.”

He opened his mouth but, really, they both clearly knew where he was going next. He gave a smile instead and pulled his apron over his head.

On his way out, after he’d grabbed his bag, he called out to her, “Thanks, Laila. See you, Beth!”

“Bye, John,” they both called out together from the back room. No doubt Laila was already confirming his bisexuality to Beth. He could just picture them snickering together. It actually didn’t bother him all that much.

All told, what should have been a supremely awkward situation hadn’t turned out that bad. Seemed he’d dodged another bullet today.

His walk back to the dorm was quiet, so he allowed himself the time to prepare for his no doubt explosive - and not in the good way - meeting with Sherlock. Normally John didn’t mind how needy he seemed to be, but at times like today, when he seemed to run hot and then cold, jerking John around like a plaything, it got to be a bit much. If he could settle for just a moment, find his equilibrium, he was sure he could reconcile his feelings for the berk.

He was stopped on his way through the lobby by a voice calling his name. He turned to look and spotted one of the footballers he’d never bothered to speak to before waving at him.

“John, hey, c’mere.”

“I’ve got plans, mate, what is it,” he snapped, bouncing on his toes. He could tell the bloke and his crew were working themselves up to ask. What was it about today that had everyone so excited about his- completely non-existent now, he might add- sex life?

“Hey, we, ah, heard a rumor-"

“Yes! All right?” He snapped, raising his voice so the whole room could hear. “John Watson sucked a bunch of cocks, no, it wasn’t a hundred and fifty, and no, I’m not gay, vaginas are still lovely. Anymore questions?”

“Yeah,” someone called out from near the billiards, “what are you doing tomorrow night?”

One of the footballers yelled, “How many was it then?”

Another on the couch asked, “Are you wearing women’s panties right now and if so, can we see?”

The room erupted into snorts, giggles and flat out belly laughs. He flipped them all off and backed out into the hall.

“I’m surrounded by children,” he muttered on his way up the stairs.

Once in his room he, dropped his bag, changed with quick efficiency, and stopped briefly to tousle his hair in the mirror. Mary had hated it, so he’d taken to wearing it like that more often. As soon as he was satisfied with the results he left the building, taking the back stairwell to leave so he didn’t have to be confronted by a room full of idiots again.

The tube was relatively empty when he stepped on, and the quiet afforded him another brief moment to collect his thoughts on Sherlock. He didn’t want to fight, he knew that, not anything serious anyway. Their teasing banter was actually one of the things he liked best about being friends with Sherlock, and he’d never consciously do anything to ruin that.

He left the train at a quick clip, suddenly in a hurry to be there, and not just because the temperature had dropped several degrees since sundown and a nasty frozen rain had started. He unlocked the door with the key Sherlock had given him within a scant two days after the meeting for biology lessons, and quickly went inside.

John’s first instinct was to run up the stairs but he didn’t want to appear too eager. Sherlock had been a prat on the phone after all; no reason to reward bad behavior with obvious excitement. He took the stairs at a leisurely pace, each step a study in casual ease. It became apparent that Sherlock was playing his violin; at least, he _assumed_ it was Sherlock playing. Mrs. Hudson had sworn he was capable of playing beautifully, but John had never heard it before; nothing as terribly haunting as the strains echoing down from above. He tiptoed the final few stairs, not wanting to bother Sherlock while he played.

The door was cracked, the only light in the room coming from the fire banked in the fireplace. He tried to peep through before opening it fully but all he could see was a sliver of the mirror across the room, above the fireplace, and Sherlock wasn’t reflected in it. He must be standing at the window.

The notes abruptly stopped and John jumped, sure he’d been caught creeping in the doorway. But when it wasn’t wrenched open he pushed it open himself to peer inside. Sherlock was at the window, his back to the room, just drawing the bow back up when John cleared his throat to make his presence known.

Sherlock flinched, his shoulders going up high, but didn’t turn around.

“Hi,” John announced, lamely.

Sherlock did turn then, slowly, the violin dropped down by his thigh. John received a slight nod of acknowledgement but Sherlock wouldn’t even make eye contact with him.

“You’re not really mad, are you? Cause I was at work. I mean, you knew I was at work. I’ve told you before about how Laila feels about phones out during open hours.”

Sherlock nodded along with John’s explanation and gave a wave as if to say it was nothing.

“So we’re good?”

"Mmmhmm,” Sherlock hummed.

John frowned at him, trying to puzzle out why Sherlock looked like a toddler with a full diaper.

“Are you all right? You look sick.” He started walking further into the room but stopped when Sherlock backed up. He frowned even harder. “What is the matter with you?”

He shook his head and pouted as if he didn’t know what John was referring to.

The lack of verbal sparring was a dead giveaway but the further into the room he’d walked the real reason Sherlock wasn’t speaking became clear. He continued on, prowling forward until he was nearly toe to toe with Sherlock at the window.

The man leaned all the way back, as far as his torso would stretch back without hitting his head.

John smiled, a feral thing, one he’d gotten smacked more than once for giving his sister. His index finger came up slowly, Sherlock tracking its progress as it came to a stop at his diaphragm. His eyes met John’s, pleadingly, but John wasn’t deterred.

He poked him.

And just as John suspected, a cloud of aromatic smoke erupted out of Sherlock’s mouth. It billowed and swirled around them for a few seconds and then dissipated.

“I knew it,” John announced smugly.

Sherlock coughed hard, the hand with the bow in it came up to his stomach as he heaved.

“Oh, don’t be such a wimp.” He received a glare for that but while Sherlock was too busy hacking, John snatched the roach out of the ashtray on the window sill. “You killed it,” he grumbled. It was then that he caught sight of the rest of the bag, tucked into the corner.

“John, I-"

“Hush.” John held up a hand for silence. He nudged Sherlock out of the way so he could reach the bag, bouncing it in the palm of his hand as he weighed the pros and cons of the idea that had formed. “Roll another one,” he commanded darkly.

Sherlock quirked an eyebrow at him and a lopsided smirk appeared. “Are you going to make me smoke the whole bag as a punishment?”

“No,” John drawled, and then, moving to their chairs and tossing the bag on the table, continued, “I’m making you share with the class.”

Sherlock’s smug face quickly morphed into one of surprise. It always felt good when he could outwit the smartest man he knew.

 _Maybe that’s why you decided to smoke pot with him to begin with_ , a voice drifted in, unbidden. _Is that a good idea, really? Getting high with your crush just to see the look on his face?_

 _Shut up_ , he responded to the know-it-all voice.

He nodded for Sherlock to come over and watched as the man slowly set his violin down on the table against the wall before he cautiously came over to sit.

“Go on,” John encouraged, as one might a timid canine.

Sherlock reached out for the bag, apparently convinced of John’s sincerity, and then leaned over to pull a pack of rolling papers from his pocket. He occasionally glanced up as he filled the folded paper, his dexterous fingers easily pulling the buds apart. John watched the process with a fond smile, as memories of times gone by resurfaced. He would have been sixteen? seventeen maybe? His mate Paul had a cousin who sold pot and they’d gotten high in his uncle’s garage countless times. But then Paul and his family had moved to Bristol and there went John’s supply. He’d been with a string of girls in the preceding years who frowned upon such activities so John hadn’t smoked since.

He tried not to stare as Sherlock’s long, elegant fingers delicately rolled the joint and then brought it to his lush mouth to wet, but a hard swallow bobbed John’s Adam’s apple anyway, despite his best effort.

“Would have thought you’d find weed… prosaic?” John tried for teasing and hoped he succeeded.

Sherlock twisted the ends and smiled. “Hackneyed,” he corrected. “But needs must.”

John rolled his eyes as Sherlock stood and walked to grab his lighter. When he returned, he placed the joint in his mouth, lit the end, puffed once, twice and then leaned over to hand it to John.

“Where did you get this anyway?” John asked just before he took his own turn.

Sherlock blew his share across the table into John’s face and chuckled. “Mrs. Hudson.”

The little bit John had managed to inhale came right back out in a great cloud of surprise. “Are you… are you serious?” He managed to ask between dry coughs, trying not to showcase the fact that his chest was on fire.

“Mmm,” Sherlock hummed in answer, waving the joint away when John tried to pass it back, allowing him another try since his first was ruined. “She keeps a bag on hand for when her arthritis flares up. But between you and me, it flares up quite a lot.”

John pressed his lips together against a grin, forcing the smoke to stay put in his chest until he was ready to set it loose. When he did, he blew the cloud up to the ceiling before passing back to Sherlock.

“I can’t believe we’re smoking your landlady’s weed. There’s a circle in hell for that, too, I’m sure.”

Sherlock couldn’t reply but his face said clearly what he thought of that.

John stared for a second longer than he normally would, watching as Sherlock expelled blue-tinged smoke slowly from his lips. Watched transfixed as it curled around Sherlock’s throat and chest as it crawled down, down into his lap. The rest was blown against the end of the joint to send ashes to the carpet.

John swallowed another gulp and prayed Sherlock didn’t notice how wildly turned on he was. Honestly, it boggled the mind how Sherlock hadn’t noticed every time John stared or licked his lips or gripped his own thighs in an attempt not to touch.

“You know,” John leaned to take his turn and their fingers brushed due to the shortened length of the joint, “I can see you in an opium den.”

“Really?” Sherlock asked, apparently nonplussed by the contact. “I’ve never been. Know any good ones?”

John snickered and let a small dragon’s puff of smoke out. His limbs were already feeling heavy, his thoughts just a little bit lighter. Mrs. Hudson had some premium stuff. He toed off his shoes to get properly comfortable and then made a mental reminder not to take any more of his clothes off.

He tried his hand at a few smoke rings and then answered, “No, sorry I don’t. Should we try Google?”

Sherlock held up a finger, digging into his trousers for his phone. “Siri. Find opium dens in London.”

John cackled and Sherlock waved at him to be quiet as they listened for her reply.

“Showing listings for ‘open pens,’” her professional voice intoned.

John chuckled in confusion. “What?”

When Sherlock glanced down at his phone he immediately bent double and laughed himself silly. John laughed along with him, though he wasn’t sure yet why.

“What does it say?” He asked between giggles.

Sherlock held the phone out, too busy laughing to answer properly. John switched the joint into his right hand so he could take the mobile, and then flipped it so he could look at the number one result.

“Pentonville!” John erupted into great belly laughs as well. “Yeah, skip go, do not collect two hundred quid.”

“Why she assumes I’m going to immediately get caught in the opium den is beyond me. No evidence gathering, no due process, just straight to prison.”

They giggled mercilessly for a long time over that, passing the joint back and forth until it burnt their fingertips, and then laid back against their chairs in a sprawling heap. John let the back of his chair cradle his nape and stared up at the ceiling.

“There’s a paint chip missing in the shape of Saudi Arabia,” he casually noted.

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed in mild surprise. “I thought about borrowing a ladder so I could chip away the rest of the Middle East but Mrs. Hudson would likely not approve.”

More giggles escaped as John pictured Sherlock with a hammer and chisel, tapping away, making a mess for his landlady to find come morning.

“Best not,” John agreed after a moment.

“My only real concern would be lead based paints,” Sherlock went on to say. “Though low doses would probably be all right…” He trailed off with a careless, swirling hand motion.

John gave a great sigh but kept his opinion to himself. Sherlock was quite a contrary individual, easily doing himself great harm if he believed you were questioning his skills or conviction in some way, and John had learned early on not to provoke the beast.

Unless it was funny. Then he’d poke away just to watch Sherlock puff up like an annoyed kitten.

His thoughts trailed away again, time seeming to skip beats as he glanced from Sherlock lazing sideways in his chair, to the fire that dwindled, to the ceiling reflecting its slow flickering flames.

“You know what always bothered me?”

Sherlock’s head came up with great effort. “What?”

“Flying cars. Right? Everybody’s so keen on flying cars but if you think about it, it’s really a terrible idea. You’d be even more likely to crash without proper lanes.”

Sherlock sat up fully at this, a concerned pucker to his brow as he stared John down “You’re right, John. Think of the ways a sniper could utilize such a vehicle!”

John threw his hands up. “See! That’s what I’m talking about. Why does no one ever think of these things?” He was thrilled Sherlock agreed, as he was adamant that this future never come to pass, and it felt good to have that validation.

“I certainly never had but I’m glad you brought it up. I’ll have a talk with my brother, see if he can’t insure that production never comes to fruition.”

“Good.” John nodded and then looked up in confusion. “Wait. What does your brother do?”

Sherlock picked up and casually fiddled with a magazine. It was upside down. “Nothing _terribly_ important. He’s recently tried his hand at government affairs, boring office work I’m sure.”

John slid him a side eye, not sure if Sherlock was telling the truth but having no real reason to think he was lying. He wasn’t looking at John to see the look anyway.

“So,” John drawled casually, “you’re not close then?”

Sherlock made a face like someone had shot him in the mouth with lemon juice from a squirt gun- surprised and disgusted.

“God no. Since my parents allowed him guardianship he’s been a terror. He thinks it makes him all-powerful.”

“I don’t know, he lets you live here by yourself. That’s pretty great.”

“Only if I continue to tutor the idiots at University.”

John cleared his throat meaningfully but the noise flew right over Sherlock’s head. To be fair, they hadn’t had a real ‘study session’ in the last two weeks. Once John had grasped the issue with his way of learning everything had coalesced rather nicely, and he’d finally caught up in his school work. Now they mostly spent their time on cases or generally just hanging out.

“He has control of my funds and monitors my allowance,” Sherlock went on, “which, I might add, is completely unnecessary.”

“I believe you were trying to get your hands on some saltpeter for a pipe bomb the other day-"

“ _And_ , he has Mrs. Hudson spying on me at all hours. Not that I have anything to hide but it’s the principle of the thing.”

John clearly remembered Sherlock being high as a kite at their first introduction, but kept this bit to himself.

“No offence but I think you do need some looking after. You tend to be a bit… reckless.”

Sherlock glared at John as if he’d committed high treason. The magazine went flying and Sherlock sat forward in his seat, weaving a bit, but staring John down.

“What?” John leaned away. “You look like a cobra, stop it.”

“You should move in.”

John stopped moving, though he hadn’t been aware of doing so to begin with. It was eerily quiet in the flat. Nothing from downstairs, nothing next door, not even London had anything to say.

“I’m sorry. Did you just ask me to move in with you?” John whispered, afraid his voice would break the spell.

“Yes.”

John blinked at him for several more seconds before asking, “Why?”

“Because, apparently, I need a keeper,” he responded casually.

“Now wait, I never said-"

Sherlock held up a hand. “I never said you did, but it stands to reason. You, as well as everyone else, believes me to be a danger to myself. Your moving in would be nothing but logical. You would have the security of knowing my whereabouts and activities, not to mention your own space. I would gain more independence from Mrs. Hudson and my idiotic brother with your supervision.”

“Which, as you know, is practically nil if you’re actively hiding something from me,” John quipped.

Sherlock inclined his head. “True, but I’d never truly do anything to endanger either you or Mrs. Hudson.”

John’s spine hurt from trying to remain upright, so he melted back against the cushion. “We’re not worried about ourselves, Sherlock. The point is _you_ have no survival instinct. You’re like a damn honey badger.” He giggled at that thought.

“I can’t be both, John. Mammal or reptile?” He looked damned serious, which only set John to giggling again.

“Platypus,” John decided, finding this both ingenious and hilarious.

Sherlock merely glared and informed him that platypi were aquatic mammals. They argued over that for another few minutes, until John’s stomach gave a rumble.

“Got any nibbles?” He questioned as he travelled toward the kitchen.

“Afraid not,” Sherlock answered from the sitting room. “I usually raid Mrs. Hudson round this time but she’s taken to hiding her biscuits in her room.”

“I don’t want biscuits,” John mused aloud, opening and closing the barren cupboards, “I want salty. Like crisps or…oh! Let’s order out!” He grinned, near ecstasy at the thought of delivered stir-fry. “Christ, I’d kill for Chinese, let’s get Chinese, c’mon.”

Sherlock chuckled at John’s adamant bouncing. “We’ll have to pick it up ourselves. The place around the corner won’t deliver here anymore.”

John deflated at that bit of news. “But it’s bloody freezing out. What about a different one?”

“Nothing closer open, I’m afraid.” He picked his mobile up from John’s chair and dialed. “What do you want?” He asked, phone tucked between his shoulder and ear.

John gave his order and frowned all the while at the thought of having to go out in it; he could hear the plinking of ice coming down on the roof now. He shivered and frowned harder. Sherlock hung up and snorted at John’s pouting face.

“It’s not far,” he appealed. “Two blocks, I swear. We’ll be back before you know it.”

John threw his head back and groaned as he trudged toward his coat.

Sherlock snickered. “Note made. Marijuana turns John into a six year old.”

“Am not!” He argued petulantly. “I just like to be comfortable. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s hailing outside!”

Sherlock glanced out the window and announced, “Freezing rain actually.”

“Oh, freezing rain,” John mimicked Sherlock’s posh accent as he tugged his coat on. “That’s better, isn’t it? All I wanted was to sit by the fire with my mellow buzz and eat a whole plate of stir-fry and some egg rolls and some Coke and maybe a packet of Wotsits…”

“Amended. Marijuana turns John into a sixty year old.”

John glared at that. How he’d love to knock that smug little smirk right off Sherlock’s face. “I’ll show you old,” he threatened with a balled fist in the air.

Unperturbed, Sherlock’s lip twitched as he, surprisingly, started to roll another joint. John watched as he finished quickly and tucked it casually behind his ear.

“What’s that for?” John queried.

“For smoking, I’d imagine,” he answered drolly.

 _Really?_ John squinted as Sherlock donned his coat and scarf. “You can’t seriously think to bring that with us.”

“And why not? It’s nearly midnight, no one will be out in this.” Sherlock waved at the window.

“Of course they won’t. You’d have to be mad to,” he said with a pointed look. Being dark, wet and freezing didn’t mean no police though. If anything it probably upped the chance of running into the fuzz, as they kept an eye out for real criminals looking to utilize Sherlock’s very excuse.

“Yes, and without shoes no less,” Sherlock drawled, looking pointedly right back, at John’s socked feet.

He flexed his toes on the carpet and pursed his lips at the smart arse, but sat back down to pull his shoes on. “Stupid git,” John mumbled to himself. “What would you know? Wanting to be warm isn’t a crime. It’s my basic human right not to get pelted with frozen rain. Not to mention arrested for possession.”

When he stood, his heart leapt into his throat to find Sherlock nearer to his chair then he had been. He was further shocked to find Sherlock had removed his scarf and was deftly wrapping around John’s neck and tucking it snug into his coat.

“There,” he snapped. “Happy now? Shall we go?”

He didn’t wait for John to reply, he simply walked off. John did follow but without the snappy rejoinder he might have otherwise had, simply because he was too busy burrowing his nose into the soft fabric of Sherlock’s expensive cashmere. It smelt of smoke and Sherlock’s shampoo and John’s stomach did a dangerous flip in his chest as he pulled the rich smell from the threads. He narrowly escaped detection as they reached the bottom of the stairs and Sherlock waited by the door for John to descend.

“Ready, Grandpa?” Sherlock teased, hand on the doorknob.

“Shut it, you. Let’s just get it over with.”

“You won’t regret it, John,” he said as he opened the door. “The Tiger Palace is notorious for their chicken stir-fry. For underground Mahjong tournaments too but I don’t think you’re ready for that.”

John hissed as he crossed the threshold and freezing rain hit him right in the face. He also had to be twice as careful stepping down from the stoop, as the pavement was covered in a fine coating of ice pellets.

He pulled the knocker, shutting the door behind them, and muttered, “No. Chinese gambling, not really my area of expertise.”

John was suddenly very glad Sherlock had rolled another joint, because the rain seemed to have washed away any lingering buzz he’d maintained. And of course the man was right about there being no one in sight.

He plucked the thing from Sherlock’s ear, savoring the brush of a few curls, and held his hand out for the lighter. Sherlock scowled at him but handed it over, immediately shoving his bare hands back into his deep pockets. Served him right, making fun of John for nearly forgetting his shoes when he’d forgotten his gloves.

“Mmm,” John hummed as he lit and inhaled the burning smoke. Tasted like shit but his chest was warm.

“You’d think you’d learn to trust me on these things.”

John blew smoke in Sherlock’s face. “Whiskey would have been better.”

“Didn’t have whiskey. So sorry.” He took the joint from John and puffed away, not a care in the world.

John would be ashamed to be advocating drug use if it weren’t for the fact that Sherlock looked so damned sexy doing it. The way his chin jutted out and his lips caught then blew the smoke, it was hypnotizing. And now, with the added effect of the street lights highlighting his features and the shine of ice caught in his hair, Sherlock looked like some sort of forest creature straight from the pages of his Nan’s storybooks- something that would use its beauty to lure unsuspecting victims into the woods. Not evil, no, just mischievous.

 _You’re staring again_ , _John_ , his conscience warned him just as Sherlock handed the joint back.

“What’s your favourite animal?” John asked suddenly, to fill the silence.

Sherlock glanced down with a small chuckle. “Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. Don’t know the answer, I suppose.”

“Hmm,” Sherlock hummed and hitched his shoulders as he thought. John sucked in a great lungful, held, and blew out by the time he thought of an answer. “Dogs, I suppose.”

“Dogs?” He replied. “Really?”

“Why? Aren’t dogs supposed to be man’s best friend? What’s your problem with dogs?” He snatched the joint back, sending lit ash onto the pavement.

“I don’t have a problem with dogs, it’s just that it’s sort of a… bland answer. Dogs.”

Sherlock huffed and stopped just below the sign announcing the Tiger Palace, took another inhale before scraping the end onto the bricks outside the door. He, yet again, blew his smoke into John’s face before, contrarily, opening the door for him.

They stepped inside and John shivered with the temperature change, shaking off the December cold as he wiped his feet.

“Dogs aren’t bland,” Sherlock continued whinging. “There are over a hundred and sixty breeds-"

“No, I know that, Sherlock. I didn’t mean _dogs_ are bland. I just meant that I didn’t expect that to be your answer. Thought it would be something more exotic, like ocelots or tiger sharks or something.”

Sherlock frowned the whole way to the counter, through giving his name for the order to the wary bloke behind the register and until John nudged him with his shoulder.    

“C’mon, don’t be like that, it was just a silly question. What’s my favourite animal then? Go on,” he teased, knowing Sherlock would cheer up at the challenge.

“Simple, crocodiles.”

 _Some challenge then_ , John muttered internally. “All right, how did you know?”

He didn’t answer right away. When he did, it was with a mumbled, “Good guess.”

John nearly called him out on the lie, but then he remembered the poster that hung above his bed, a Nile crocodile jumping out of the water, the silly cartoon croc bobble head his sister had bought him when he graduated, the complete first season of The Crocodile Hunter on DVD on his shelf. Had Sherlock snooped in his room? Or did he remember from that first night, when he’d come for his coat? If so, why hadn’t he deleted it? He would've had to, or else he’d have wondered why John had his coat to begin with, and as John could already attest, Sherlock was nothing if not dogged with a mystery.

“Ah, thank you, Simon,” Sherlock said to the waiter, who waved him on rudely after he handed the bags over.

John was so caught up in his confusion he didn’t even ask why the restaurant was wary of Sherlock to begin with.

“I could try and guess your second favourite animal if you’d like,” Sherlock offered as they exited the restaurant.

He glanced over to see Sherlock looking practically giddy compared to how he’d looked moment before. That might just be the weed kicking in though.

“No, I wanna know more about _you_ ,” he said instead.

“Me?” Sherlock asked, surprised. “What about me?”

“Well,” John allowed his thoughts to coalesce into a more sensible line, “I don’t know a lot about you actually. You know what type of dinner I had by the way I comb my hair in the morning but I know hardly anything about you. Didn’t even know you had a brother until this morning.”

The bags with their food swung a little bit higher as Sherlock marched on down the pavement. “I’m not sure what else you’d want to know.” He sounded noncommittal but John could tell he was confused and maybe a bit wary. John would have thought he’d be flattered by the attention if anything.

“Favourite bacteria?”

Sherlock looked down in surprise but with a small smile, like John had asked a good question. John’s step shifted unconsciously to something bouncier.

“There are the usual classics but I wouldn’t want to give a _bland_ answer…” Pointed look. John didn’t want to point out that not everyone had a favourite bacteria. “My answer will likely change depending on the current roster of experiments but recently I’ve been studying _Streptococcus ferus,_ which is a particularly nasty alpha haemolysis found in wild rats with large quantities of sugar in their diets.”  

“Lovely,” John replied, expecting no less of a ridiculous answer. “How about your most cherished childhood memory? You did used to be a child right? You didn’t come fully formed from the sea or anything?” He teased with a grin.

“No, not that I’m aware. My mother would surely say she wished I had been, if only so she’d have somewhere to return me too.”

“Yeah, call up Poseidon. Tell him she wants a refund.” John giggled.

Sherlock did not. “It would have been more interesting than Harrow.”

John’s mirth died at that bit of information. Now all he could imagine was a strange, but frightened, little boy being dropped off out front of a terrifying gothic structure with naught but a wave and a too large suitcase at his feet.

Quickly, John asked, “That where you learned fencing? Posh place like that, I’m sure they taught all sorts of interesting things.”

“Mmm, yes. I suppose by your standards,” he drawled, every inch the country lord John imagined he could one day be.

“Git. Not all of us were rolling in it, you know. I had to share a room with Harry for three years! Thank god it was before puberty or we might have killed one another.”

“Your relationship with your sister is strained, yes, we’ve been over that.”

“Oh, well, excuse me! Least I acknowledge her existence, Mr. I-don’t-have-family-until-the-landlady-brings-him-up.”

“Mycroft believes himself to be the center of the universe. I do not.” He shook the bags by his knees as if to say, ‘end of discussion.’

“Anyway, you never answered my question. Favourite childhood memory.”

Sherlock huffed in annoyance. “I don’t suppose I have one.”

“What? At all? C’mon, there’s got to be something you enjoyed? Collecting frogs out by the lake on your family estate? The butler telling stories of the haunted stable? Being invited to country fetes down in the village where Sara, the barmaid, winked and pulled you into a reel?”

Sherlock stopped and stared at John as if he’d spouted cooking tips in Dutch.

“I’m from Yorkshire, not a Jane Austin novel,” he snapped. “Is that what you think having money is like?”

John snorted, punched him in the arm and kept walking. “You still didn’t answer my question,” he sing-sang. “You had better find a good memory or else I’ll have to assume you’re really a merman. Have to call up the Daily Mail and let them know-"

“All right! I get it! Give me a moment to think, would you?” They just turned the corner onto Baker Street when Sherlock finally answered, “Dancing. I enjoyed dancing.”

“Reels?” John immediately regretted asking when Sherlock scowled at him so hard his teeth looked ready to grind to dust.

“No, you imbecile. I took dancing at school.”

John tried to imagine that and failed. Well, he _could_ imagine it, Sherlock was the epitome of graceful when he choose to be but that he would _enjoy_ such a class…

“Dancing, huh? Like ballroom, salsa? What?”

“A bit of those, yes. And ballet.”

He said it so casually John almost missed it, but by the uncomfortable way Sherlock held his shoulders, John could tell he was waiting on a taunting laugh.

_Don’t think about Sherlock in black tights, don’t think about Sherlock in black tights, don’t-_

“Do you still-" John slammed his lips shut over his tongue. _Stupid! What if he does remember how to dance? If he throws his leg up over his head, you’re going to come right in your pants! Idiot!_

“Do I still… remember how? Of course.”

John kept his eyes on the pavement in front of them, never veering for a moment. _Of course he remembers, of course he does._

Suddenly, while John is distracting himself with naming all the bones in the foot, Sherlock shoved their dinner at him.

“Hold these,” he said and backed himself in front of John, facing forward, his back to the three steps it would have taken John to escape into the flat.

John was about to protest when Sherlock started bouncing gracefully onto his toes, effectively shutting John up.

Sherlock laughed lightly. “I probably shouldn’t do this in these shoes,” he said with another chuckle.

And then proceeded to do three perfectly executed turns on one foot. John watched, absorbed, arrested, riveted, hypnotized; use any word you’d like, he wouldn’t have been able to look away if a bomb exploded across the street.

_He is so beautiful._

When he came back down, with a proud grin, it was with a flourishing bow; which was why he wasn’t paying attention to where he set his toe down and ended up slipping on a patch of black ice.

“Sherlock!” John yelped as the man’s legs went wonky for a long second and then fell hard on his arse. John dropped their dinner to rush to his side, where Sherlock groaned on the pavement.

“Are you all right?” He asked, rolling Sherlock fully on his back. “Did you hurt anything?”

Sherlock, to John’s surprise, started laughing. “Only my pride. I had it for a second, though, didn’t I?”

John sat back against his heels in relief. “Yeah, until you went all Bambi on Ice.”

They laughed together at the absurd moment. John couldn’t help but flush at the way Sherlock’s curls rolled away from his face, showing the usually hidden plane of his forehead, and the way he looked as he tried to sit up, nose all scrunched up in annoyance. He filed the knowledge away and got an arm under Sherlock’s to help him stand.

“Oh, John, our food!” Sherlock cried out in alarm. He attempted to rescue the spilled Chinese but didn’t get far before his ankle gave way and he cried out, hobbling on one foot.

John put his arm and shoulder right back underneath to steady him. “Whoa, hold it. I think you’ve got a sprain. Quit squirming, you idiot. Let’s get up to the flat so I can look at it.”

“But the food-"

“Forget the food.”

“But John, you were hungry-"

“If you stop stalling us, we can get you inside and I can come back for the food. Yeah?”

Sherlock grunted and allowed John to start them toward the front door.

“C’mon. You got it? Here, lean up against- yeah,” John coached Sherlock into the foyer. “Gimme a second, I’ll be right back.”

He ran back out for their dinner, most of which was still salvageable. Sherlock’s broccoli had ended up in John’s stir-fry but it wouldn’t take much to figure out. A lone egg roll had lived up to its name and rolled right out into the street but other than that it was all accounted for. He ran the bags back inside, up the stairs despite Sherlock’s cry of indignation, leaving them on the kitchen table then going back for the overgrown man-child.

“You are worse than a toddler,” John complained as he got Sherlock away from the wall. “Remind me never to stitch you up after I get my license.”

“I can stitch myself, thank you very much.”

Sherlock couldn’t get up the stairs by himself just then but John decided to be the bigger man by not pointing that out.

John struggled with getting him inside, Sherlock proving himself more a hindrance than a help John was fairly surprised when Mrs. Hudson didn’t wake up. Getting him up the stairs was a trial in patience, especially since John wasn’t anywhere near sober. The git was surprisingly heavy for such a skinny thing and his insistence that he could do it himself at every stair wasn’t helping. Eventually, they managed to get inside the flat

“Let me have a look, sit down,” John commanded, easing Sherlock into his leather chair. He dropped with a grunt and glared up at John as if he’d thrown Sherlock down on purpose. John didn’t dignify the look with a response, simply glaring right back, before he dropped into a crouch to see to the wounded ankle.

“You’re not actually a doctor,” Sherlock pointed out above him as he flipped the lamp on beside them.

He was glad for the extra bit of light but didn’t say so. Instead, he slid Sherlock’s trouser up until it bunched around his calf and went about feeling the bone and tissue.

“Yeah, well, I’m as close as you’re going to get.” The outside was already bruising; the swelling would come next. In a brief show of pettiness, John pressed down on the obvious sprain. “Is it tender?”

Sherlock hissed and pulled away, scowling like a vampire exposed to garlic. “Yes, obviously!”

“Sorry, just checking.” He hid a grin when Sherlock gave a disbelieving hum. “Right, well, I’ll get you some ice to put on it. Get your shoe and sock off and put it up on the table. Here,” he placed the union jack pillow down for Sherlock to rest his heel on and turned for the kitchen.   

Having Mrs. Hudson’s bag of peas would actually have been quite useful, but he’d taken them back downstairs that morning. He instead rooted around in Sherlock’s freezer.

“How do you not have any bloody ice?” He called out when digging turned up no evidence of an ice tray.

“You could use the bag of thumbs in the crisper,” Sherlock suggested.

“No good, not cold enough,” John replied as he moved a bottle of frozen children’s pain medicine, knowing full well that he’d reached the point of not flinching at Sherlock’s madness.

“Any frozen eyeballs left?”

“Not that I can see. Might have to raid Mrs. Hudson’s freezer for the peas.”

“See if she left any nibbles out while you’re down there, would you?” Sherlock didn’t look up as John passed, too distracted by trying to pull his sock off without bending his foot.

John nicked Mrs. Hudson’s spare key from the chair cushion in the foyer, as Sherlock had shown him, and made his way silently as possible into her flat. All was quiet in the front of the flat but John could just make out the sound of Mrs Hudson’s telly in her bedroom; a luxury she’d purchased after Sherlock had first moved in and she’d received her first cheque from Mycroft. She’d divulged that bit of information that morning as they’d discussed Sherlock’s mysterious brother. The kitchen looked the same since he’d been in last. He did manage to find a half-eaten tray of Jammie Dodgers on the counter, which he grabbed after nabbing the peas. He balanced the lot and sneaked back out as silent as he’d come. It wasn’t high treason but John did get a little heart-pounding rush as he crept back out the front door with his pilfered items.

He walked back into the sitting room to find Sherlock had shrugged his coat off but was still sitting on it, and was looking up impatiently for John to bring his findings over.

“Don’t spoil your appetite,” John commanded as he set the plate of biscuits down in Sherlock’s lap, taking one for himself.

“Oh, excellent,” Sherlock drawled happily, setting in with relish as John crouched back down and broke the frozen bag of vegetables into a more flexible shape. “Cold,” he complained after John smoothed it down over the injured ankle.

“Obviously,” John teased back in his best Sherlockian bass.

They glared at each other until Sherlock’s eyes crinkled. It wasn’t a smile but it was close enough that John took it as a win. He looked back down at the sprain, noting the discolouration.

“You’re going to be hell on this sprain,” John noted, “I can tell already.”

“I’ll keep the peas on. The swelling should go down by tomorrow. It’s not bad, really.”

John frowned up at him in disbelief and, again just because he could, pressed his thumb into the lump. Not hard, just enough to remind Sherlock of the pain.

“This won’t heal right if you get up and walk on it before it’s time. Am I going to have to take out your other leg just to keep you off of it?”

Sherlock tried to swat at him but John easily leaned away from his reach. Sherlock sat back against his chair with an indignant huff.

“If you moved in you could watch to make sure I didn’t.”

John had nearly forgotten the idea since its first suggestion, filed away as nothing more than a drug addled tease on Sherlock’s part. Now John wasn’t so sure.

“Did you hit your head too?” John asked and reached out to place the back of his fingers to Sherlock’s forehead.

“No,” he snapped, shoving John’s hand away. “It’s simply… logical. You seek to protect, I clearly need a keeper. Why not arrange a situation in which we both benefit?”

Oh, yes, that seemed simple enough, didn’t it?

“Or, perhaps, this is just a suggestion, you could _stop acting like an idiot and people wouldn’t have to worry about you._ ”

Sherlock waved that away. “Nonsense. Everything I do is executed with the utmost careful thought and planning,” he announced without a hint of irony.

John looked pointed down at the bag of peas and back up, expecting an excuse about the unpredictable nature of ice, but none came.

It then became obvious to John why. He still had his hand rested on Sherlock’s shin bone, where he’d placed it when he’d moved to touch Sherlock’s forehead just moments before. They both stared down at the contact, neither willing to acknowledge it for the first few seconds. Perhaps Sherlock didn’t mind? John sure didn’t, hence why he had yet to move it. More seconds ticked by in silence and John stared down at the line of bone where it met tendon, studied it as if Sherlock were merely a life-sized anatomy tool and not a part of a greater whole that John would literally kill for.     

That was the only reason why he found them; the little white dots on already pale skin, clustered under Sherlock’s inexplicably caramel coloured leg hair. John found his thumb running over them in curiosity; not in confusion, he knew what they were, but out of some attempt to feel the reality of them for himself. Sherlock was eighteen years old, he had no business having these scars. Junkies had these scars, addicts years in the making had these scars. Not brilliant kids just out of Uni, on their own for the first time. His brother had left him alone with a middle aged woman, who habitually smoked weed for fuck’s sake, knowing this. He _had_ to have known about this!

John, in his anger, seemed to have pressed Sherlock tight in his grip, to the point where the man flinched and sucked in a pained breath. John immediately let go but could not look away from those hateful pinpricks, the evidence of Sherlock’s self-destructive behavior.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Sherlock asked quietly.

John couldn’t meet his eyes, so he glanced away, looking toward the banked fire. When his legs started to go numb from staying crouched for so long he moved up into the chair, still unable to look up from the fireplace.

Guilt was a heavy stone in his gut, dragging him down further and further until he could barely breathe. Why had he thought tonight was a good idea? He knew Sherlock did drugs, hard drugs at that, and he still encouraged Sherlock to smoke with him. Obviously weed wasn’t the worst they could have done, but he’d still willingly forgotten that first night, knowing damn well that Sherlock had no qualms about partaking in even the shadiest of circumstances. John had not only encouraged, he’d _demanded_. Was he really that desperate for a spot of fun?

Before the lie could even fully form, he brushed it aside. He knew why he’d done it. Might as well be honest with himself- John had wanted to recreate that first night. Simple as that. He’d been desperate all right…

John took a deep breath and let it out slowly, shame radiating his entire frame. He wanted to leave, with all his might, wanted to be gone, but he needed to think.

He couldn’t just move in, could he? What would that do to them, their friendship? John tried to imagine every scenario, from coming downstairs in the morning to find Sherlock hadn’t slept a wink the night before, to the constant struggle of forcing Sherlock to eat when he couldn’t get away with lying about it anymore, to sharing the loo. For fuck’s sake, Sherlock in the shower! Unacceptable! Except, there _was_ an acceptable reason to stay, wasn’t there? Could he really leave Sherlock to his own devises? Knowing what he was capable of, not just exploding the flat, but possibly doing irreparable damage to his mind… These were _not_ his responsibilities. They weren’t! But he knew himself well enough to know he would worry constantly. It would be a never ending battle, lying awake at night, wondering if Sherlock was shooting up or snorting or running off with some nameless, faceless drug dealer. Or worse, one named _Wiggy_ , of all the stupid things.

John knew he could sit and internally debate all night but his answer was already there.  He didn’t have to like it though. He’d practically been manipulated into it- it was going to drive John mad, he _knew_ it, all so Sherlock could squeeze just an ounce more freedom from his mysterious brother- but… he couldn’t say no. He just couldn’t.

“Where are you going?” Sherlock asked when John stood abruptly from his chair.

He held up a hand, unable to even look at Sherlock in that moment. “I need time. Just… give me some time.”

“All right,” he whispered, uncharacteristically quiet.

John questioned even that; had to wonder if it all wasn’t part of the plan to lower his defenses.

He turned with a controlled step, grabbed his bag, and left the flat without a word.  

The walk to the tube was abysmal, just as cold and wet as it had been the hour before, but his mind was otherwise occupied with strengthening his mental strongholds, making sure every possible weakness was solidified against future attacks. Boxing lessons would need to be kept to regulation only. Lav time could under no circumstances overlap, not even to brush teeth. Any intimate activity must be kept separate, with the exception of eating or shared sitting room time. He’d already experienced Sherlock in his ridiculous silk dressing gowns, so that wouldn’t really be an issue. But what about catching Sherlock dressing? Or, god forbid he find evidence of actual masturbation happening! He already knew how he reacted to the mere idea of it, that morning’s misadventure had proven that, but what if he caught the odd moan from his room?

John had to stop and dig his nails into his palm, applying near-cutting force, before he could walk along again. He’d just have to block any and all thoughts of Sherlock in a compromising situation from his mind. Bury himself in work, school, cases, the odd friend or two he had left.

Once he reached the dorm, and the technical aspects of the new endeavor became clear, such as informing the school of his change of address and letting Bill know he was leaving, John was angry all over again.

~*~

It must have been some miracle, or Mrs. Hudson was completely deaf, because the racket of John dragging his suitcase up the stairs should have roused everyone in the entire building. It seemed to weigh a tonne, despite being filled with nothing but essentials. Well… perhaps he could have left his dvds for another day.

John finally reached the top of the stairs and called out as quietly as he could, “Sorry, it was heavier than I-"

His explanation was abruptly cut off as John realized he was alone in the sitting room. He stared in confusion at Sherlock’s empty chair, noted that the plate of biscuits had been up-ended as if Sherlock had gotten up in a hurry. Instinctively, he moved toward the plate to clean up the mess, but a more pressing matter needed to be addressed first.

“Sherlock?” He quietly called out, nervous in the dead silence that answered.

The man’s coat was laying haphazardly in his chair, so he hadn’t left the flat. _As if he could have gotten far if he had_ , John thought.

His bedroom door was ajar, and since John felt honor bound to check on his pseudo-patient, he made his way down the hall.

“Sherlock, you in here?” He asked before pushing the door open enough to glance inside. All of the lights were out but he could still see that the room was empty. Where the hell could he be?

The loo was dark but even a quick glance told John Sherlock wasn’t hiding in there either. Not in the kitchen, or on the sofa or under his bed or in a cupboard. The only other option was the upstairs bedroom, in theory soon to become John’s bedroom. He hoped Sherlock hadn’t walked upstairs on his bad ankle, but he must have, the idiot.

John cautiously made his way up to the spare bedroom. The door was already open when he got there, the tips of Sherlock’s feet just visible in the doorway, one bare, one still wearing the expensive Italian loafer.

“Sherlock, what the-"

John shut up as soon as he absorbed the state of the room, not to mention the state of his new flatmate, which was in shambles. Sherlock had apparently crawled up a flight of stairs on a sprained ankle so he could break a lamp, tear the sheets off the bed and throw pillows onto the floor.

He walked further into the room to find Sherlock on his side beside the bed, staring off at the opposite wall. John didn’t know whether to be frustrated or mildly amused. He’d only been gone an hour and look what had happened.

“Sherlock, what are you doing?” He asked as he crouched down to Sherlock’s level. He didn’t receive a response, so he tried again. “Hey, c’mon, sit up, you idiot.”

He lifted Sherlock into a sitting position but still the man stayed quiet. If this was a mind palace thing, why the hell had Sherlock needed to come clear up here? Why hadn’t he responded yet?

“You’re scaring me now, Sherlock. What’s the matter?”

Sherlock blinked slowly as John put a hand to his forehead and cheek to feel for a fever, in case he had gotten sick from being out in the cold.

“John?” He croaked, blinking confused eyes up at John where he was hunched over him.

“Yes, of course. Are you all right? I called out when I got in but you must not have heard. Why are you up here?”

Sherlock looked around but his eyes came back to John’s in confusion. “I- I thought you weren’t coming back,” he whispered, trying to sit up further.

John steadied him with both hands to his shoulders as he winced in pain. “Steady on. You’ve probably exacerbated the ankle. Daft git. Seriously, what did you come up here for?”

“You left.”

“Yes,” John drawled, confused. “I’m back now.” He removed his hands from Sherlock’s shoulders when the heat emanating from the man became too obvious to his receptive palms.

“I didn’t think you… you said you needed time to think…” He studied John for clues, but to what John had no idea. It wasn’t as dark on this side of the flat, facing the street as it did, so it wasn’t hard to make out Sherlock’s searching eyes.

John explained, as apparently it was needed, “Yes. I needed time to think about your offer. It’s not as simple as you think, moving in, but I thought about it and decided you do need a keeper. You’ve proven that theory correct, good on you,” he deadpanned, nodding to Sherlock’s state on the floor.

“You’re-" Sherlock’s brow crinkled adorably in confusion, his head cocked like a spaniel.

“Moving in? Yes. This is my room, right? I mean, did you want to switch or something? Cause I’ve got to say, I don’t like your redecorating.” He gave a good natured chuckle but Sherlock didn’t laugh with him. He stared up at John like John had offered him gold, frankincense and myrrh. Or maybe more appropriately, a triple homicide. It was so similar to the way he’d looked at John that first night that John’s smile died on his lips and he had to swallow and look away, lest he start blushing.

He cleared his throat and cautiously asked, “If that’s still what you want?”

Sherlock nodded frantically, hope so unabashedly shining from his eyes that John’s stomach flipped. He looked so young, so earnest.

This wasn’t about getting his brother off his back. Sherlock truly wanted John to live with him. How could he have forgotten about the conclusion he’d come to just that morning? He was Sherlock’s only friend…

“My bag is downstairs, with my clothes and that. I’ll just go grab it and bring it up. The rest I’ll have to get tomorrow, you know, my… everything else…” John rambled idiotically as he stood and shuffled toward the door. Sherlock’s eyes seemed to be laser-sighted onto him the entire way.

He took his time going down and then dragging the ridiculous suitcase up the stairs, if only to give himself time to think. His heart-rate was up, and not just because the suitcase weighed a tonne.

Sherlock really wanted John to move in. He’d apparently thrown a fit when he thought John wasn’t coming back, had attempted to wreck the spare room, John’s room, at the very thought. John tried not to read too much into it but… was it really that important to Sherlock?

No. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t read more into it than Sherlock wanting a friend. There was nothing wrong with that, it was a normal human need, it didn’t mean Sherlock wanted John as anything other than a mate to bounce theories off of during cases. Someone to have breakfast with in the morning. Someone to make tea.

John reached the top of the stairs to find Sherlock standing, balancing on the post at the end of his bed.

“Here. I’ll help-"

“Oh, you idiot,” John dropped the suitcase, “sit down before you fall.”

Sherlock dropped onto the bed like his strings had been cut, before John could even reach him. He seemed to wait patiently for further instructions.

John rubbed at the bridge of his nose, frustrated but somewhat chuffed to have Sherlock’s undivided attention. Sometimes he forgot Sherlock was three years his junior; he was just so much smarter than John and never hesitated to prove it. This was a different side altogether.

“Right. Well, we’ll have to get you downstairs now, won’t we?”

“I suppose,” Sherlock agreed.

The inflection in Sherlock’s voice gave the impression there was an alternative and it caused John’s ears to heat. He prayed the man couldn’t tell, or if he could that he wouldn’t follow the train of thought.

“C’mon then.” John reluctantly got his shoulder under Sherlock’s arm and together they hobbled back down to the sitting room.

“If you leave me here, that will be fine,” Sherlock murmured as they reached the loo.

John helped him lean against the door jam, already missing his heat as soon as he stepped away. Sherlock flipped the light on and turned back to John with a hesitant look.

“John,” he started but failed to follow it up with anything.

“Well, good night then,” John said with a quick smile and a pat to the door frame next to Sherlock’s hand.

“Thank you.”

The words came so soft John wasn’t sure he’d heard them. He wasn’t even sure what Sherlock was thanking him for, but he turned and gave another smile. He found Sherlock looking back at him with that same look of wonder he’d worn before. Was he even aware he was doing it?

John left Sherlock downstairs and went to unpack his bag. The rumble of his stomach reminded him that they'd never gotten around to eating the Chinese, but he doubted he could bother now. More than anything he just wanted to lie down and pray sleep came easily. He’d been up nearly all day and what a day it had been.

With only half of his case unpacked, John gave up and stripped down to his vest and pants. He gave a half-hearted thought about brushing his teeth but decided instead to drag the sheets and pillows back up onto the bed. The blanket was still folded up in the chair in the corner, where Sherlock hadn’t reached before he’d collapsed. The lamp could be fixed in the morning.

Try as he might, John couldn’t get the memory of Sherlock’s surprise out of his mind and he wasn’t sure how to combat the hope that lifted his heart up to eye level and forced him look. He could tell himself all day and night that it wasn’t like that for Sherlock but he remembered that first night, couldn’t forget it no matter how hard he tried, and to see that kind of blatant amazement on Sherlock’s face again…

It was the worst kind of dangerous for John to live with that hope.

He’d need more to distract him than work and school.

His last thought, just as the sky outside his window pane became tinted with indigo and green, was to wonder if Laila’s offer was still on the table.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm in the midst of a nervous breakdown over the last chapter tbh, so apologies if it takes a while to get to you fabulous people. I wanted it to be finished by now, but life and creative differences with the characters has gotten in the way lately. Sherlock seems to think it's okay to angst the shit out of this story and I'm doing my best to wrangle him... It's not going well. One thousand apologies, I'll have it to you as soon as I can.


	4. I Will Wait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock didn't actual believe John would stay, it was too good to be true. Perhaps it was...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is no good reason for this chapter. To anyone who waited for it, I apologize profusely.

Sherlock’s ankle was killing him, burning and tight, but he wasn’t going to get up, not if the flat burned around his ears.

Well, perhaps if the flat were to burn around his ears, but only to ensure John’s safety.

John, who, judging from the faint shifting of the ancient floorboards, was currently just waking in the room upstairs.  John, who had come back last night, after Sherlock had assumed to never see him again, to announce his intent to stay. Sherlock hadn’t been sure he hadn’t dreamt the whole incident until just now, as the sound of John rolling out of bed made it real.

Sherlock could hear John’s lazy gait as he made his way down the stairs to the loo. His morning ablutions were done directly against the wall Sherlock was currently leaning against, and Sherlock felt a breath catch in his chest at his completely unwarranted luck. The arrogant part of Sherlock wanted to take credit for John’s decision to stay, but he was far too smart for that. In reality it made no logical bit of sense. John had seen the scars for himself, had displayed the proper response to them- anger. Sherlock had been laid out all night fretting the turn of events, because in Sherlock’s mind, he calculated absolute failure. John had left, with the feeblest of excuses, and by all rights should not have returned.

He remembered the anger, the self-disgust, the blind rage that had him tearing up the stairs to what he had already deemed ‘John’s room’ in his mind so he could do physically to the room what he couldn’t do to his own mind, which was to tear it apart.

He hadn’t gotten very far before he’d fallen to the floor in agony but he did remember the lamp had crashed to the floor with him and smashed quite nicely.

He remembered the unbidden internal litany, _alone, alone, always alone…_

“Sherlock?” John’s voice quietly called after him from the other side of the door to the loo.

Replaced now with, _not alone… John is here…_

He cleared his throat and answered, “Yes?”

“Can I come in?” John asked, already cracking the door.

“Yes,” he responded, suddenly inexplicably nervous.

John looked at him in the bed, apparently not satisfied with some aspect of his laying against the headboard, on top of the blankets. Perhaps he didn’t like that Sherlock was still in his clothes from the night before?

“Did you sleep at all?” John chastised, moving around to the end of the bed to check on his ankle. He sat down lightly next to Sherlock’s injured foot, leaning in for a closer look.

“No,” Sherlock answered truthfully, not sure why it mattered. John frowned up as he gently palpated the still swollen ankle. “I rarely do,” he went on to explain, “you know that.”

“You stayed off of it though, right? Didn’t get up again after I went to bed?”

“No,” he answered. He had silently sworn not to do anything to anger John, within reason, lest he decide to go back to the dorms.

“The swelling looks the same,” he noted as he turned the foot side to side. “How’s that feel? Stiff?”

“Yes,” Sherlock responded evenly, despite how it felt to have John’s hands on him again.

“The swelling should have gone down by now but I’m not surprised it hasn’t, the way you aggravated it last night.” He frowned down at the ankle in a way that lead Sherlock to believe that wasn’t all John was upset about. When John licked his lips Sherlock knew he was gearing up to start an uncomfortable conversation.

“Yes, John?” Sherlock started for him.

John smiled, knowing he’d been obvious. “I just wanted to say, to ask, rather, that you… not do…” He took a breath and laid his hand gently down where Sherlock knew those damned track marks lay. “Will you promise me you’re done with this? I mean, I assume you’re clean now,” he rushed to say, “but I don’t know if I can handle finding out you’re not.”

Sherlock wanted to be flippant, it was in his nature to brush off uncomfortable conversations, but this was important. John’s trust was the most important thing. He’d not start off their proper foray into a relationship with false hope and lies.

“I haven’t touched a needle since May and, with the exception of one night a few months back, I haven’t done anything at all in that time until last night. I swear. I’ll continue to stay clean, you have my word. Even the marijuana if you’d like.”

John’s eyes crinkled, just the way Sherlock liked, as he smiled warmly up at him and patted Sherlock’s shin - a careless, casual touch, like it didn’t even matter.

“That’s all right. Little weed never hurt anybody.” He glanced down at the swollen evidence to the contrary and chuckled. “Well, almost nobody.”

“That wasn’t the drugs, it was the frozen pavement. I could have done Albrecht’s entire Act II from Giselle if we’d gone inside first.”

John’s eye twitched. “You know I have no idea what that is but I’m sure it would have been lovely.” He patted Sherlock’s shin twice more and then stood up. “I’ll just, uh, go see if I can’t borrow some ice from Mrs. Hudson.”

Sherlock snorted.

John stopped his way forward. “What?” He asked warily.

“You said borrow. Do you intend to hand her a bag of lukewarm water when I’ve finished with it?”

John’s only response was a roll of his eyes as he walked away.

Sherlock grinned until his cheeks hurt.

Things had gone well, despite all logic. It lifted Sherlock’s spirits like no needle full of opiates had ever done, seeing John trust him so explicitly. There was still work to be done, he knew that, but in that moment, with John’s pleasant, warm voice drifting up from the stairs, everything was perfect.

“What have you done now, you great fool?” Mrs. Hudson bustled in behind John, who grimaced as if to say he’d done his best.

“Nothing for you to worry yourself over,” Sherlock responded as she tittered over John’s placement of the ice.

“Sherlock,” she admonished darkly,” if you’ve been chasing criminals again, I won’t be responsible for keeping your brother’s nose out of it.”

He tilted his head and wondered at this show of bravado. The answer became obvious immediately when her eyes flitted away under the pressure of Sherlock’s gaze.

“He called.” She opened her mouth to deny or placate but Sherlock cut her off. “John, prepare yourself. We’re going to have a guest today.”

John straightened out of his crouch, wary, eyes tracking the unspoken conversation happening between himself and Mrs. Hudson, in which Sherlock’s ‘whose side are you on?’ guilt looks were met with ‘you try talking to him!’  

“Who? Your brother?” John asked, hesitantly.

“Yes,” Sherlock growled. Damn the bastard to Yorkshire and back. Couldn’t he keep his fat nose out of personal business for another month?

“And that is… bad?” John asked. “Is this about my moving in? Because that’s not technically official. I-“

“Oh John! How lovely!” Mrs. Hudson’s exclamation and swift enveloping hug made it official enough in their eyes. John looked like a fly caught in a Venus flytrap.

“I still have to call the housing board and let my roommate know,” John was trying to explain but the landlady was having none of it. She went on about the room upstairs, insinuating it’s possible superfluous existence, which turned John’s ears red, and - oh! - the linens downstairs she would bring up and not to worry about that month’s rent, as Mycroft had already taken care of it. All the while Sherlock stared blankly at his mounted rapier over the dresser, plotting how best to commit fratricide with his bum foot as an impediment. Poison a pastry?

“Don’t you worry about a thing, Mycroft will be pleased to meet you, I’m sure of it!” Mrs. Hudson patted John soundly and quit the room, presumably to retrieve the spare linens.

John looked far from pacified but Sherlock could give him no peace. Mycroft would no doubt drudge up some awful, embarrassing thing, either about John or about Sherlock in front of John, and Sherlock couldn’t spare the extra time and effort to assuage John’s worries. He needed to focus all of his energy on the upcoming battle.

After he failed to respond to John’s question, the man quit the room in a huff. Just as well. John was too distracting in his sleep attire anyway.

~*~

Mycroft sat across the table, in _John’s_ chair, and stared for thirteen seconds before beginning.

“How’s the ankle?”

He would only know about that if he’d been watching the CCTV the night before, as Sherlock hadn’t moved from his chair since he’d sat down an hour ago.

Sherlock sniffed disdainfully. “Mmm, been brown-nosing again, I see.”

“Yes, I _was_ recently promoted, thank you.”

Sherlock glanced at John on the sofa, who was looking between the two of them in bewilderment. He wanted to ask, Sherlock could tell, it was on the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t.

“I can tell,” Sherlock went on, “your middle is spreading again already. I see the words gluten-free in your future.”

Mycroft gave his patented smirk, knowing Sherlock well enough to know that belittling Mycroft’s weight meant he was uncomfortable. Sherlock didn’t allow his shoulders to hitch in the slightest, lest Mycroft read into that as well.

Thus began the _silent_ battle of wills, both men tilting their chins, pursing lips, or raising eyebrows in a language they’d developed as children.

_Fancy yourself a lover, do you?_

_Not that that’s any of your business, but no. John is a friend and a colleague._

_Hmm. Does he know that? Seems he’d like to prove otherwise. He’s practically oozing pheromones._

_Adolescent men tend to do that, regardless of the company they keep. Or so I’m told._

_You would know._ Mycroft’s smirk said he was about to volley his next shot and was fairly preening with confidence.

“I’m glad to see you’ve given up the atrocious nighttime forays. The club scene is so early nineties. Wouldn’t you agree, John?” Mycroft turned toward John for the first time.

Before John could fully open his mouth to confusedly agree, Sherlock hissed, “ _Ta gueule!_ ”

“ _Tes objectifs sont flagrants, petit frère_ ,” Mycroft drawled lazily, with that slow blink that made Sherlock want to permanently remove his smug eyelids.

_“C’est ton tour de taille qui est flagrant!”_

John coughed lightly and Sherlock shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His ankle gave a twinge but he ignored it.

Mycroft continued on as if a break in the conversation had never occurred. “Speaking of fraternizing with denizens of ill repute, I ask again, will you please refrain from giving handouts to vagrants?”

Sherlock smirked, giving as good as he got, and drawled, “You’re building your empire, Mycroft, I’m building mine.”

His brother’s answering smile said what he thought about that.

“You hope to become a doctor, correct?” Mycroft addressed John directly again, who flinched at the abrupt attention.

“Yes. Perhaps join the RAMC after I receive my degree,” John answered hesitantly, still looking to Sherlock and back.

Sherlock started at this bit of new information. His first instinct was to forbid such an endeavor but obviously he couldn’t do that. For several reasons, the most pressing being his irritatingly perceptive brother, who saw the flinch and read it anyway. John, thankfully, remained oblivious.

“What a noble goal,” Mycroft noted, glancing antagonistically at Sherlock. “Do let me know what you decide. I’m sure I can expedite the entry process for you.”

 _I will dismember you and hide your parts in the four corners of the Earth_ , Sherlock’s glare screamed.  

“I… Yes, of course,” John reluctantly agreed. “Sherlock tells me you work in government?”

 _Speaking of me, little brother?_ Mycroft’s head tilt asked. _I’m flattered_.

“I occupy a small position, yes.” He twisted his umbrella jovially, smug in his new position as MI6’s youngest Assistant Director of Foreign Affairs.

Sherlock gave a snort to which Mycroft answered with a warning frown.

“That must be interesting,” John filled the tense silence, unaware of exactly why the brothers looked ready to do murder but willing to help ease the tension. So kind, his John.

“Mmm, yes, quite.” Mycroft rose gracefully, despite his horrifically top-heavy frame. “I should be off. It was lovely to meet you, John. Do feel free to contact me should you need.”

He handed John a card on his way out - a pass in Mycroft’s estimation, not that Sherlock cared - which John glanced at in confusion.

“Oh, all right, yes. I’ll…” He trailed off when it became apparent that Mycroft was leaving. “What the hell was that?” He asked Sherlock as soon as Mycroft’s lumbering arse passed the doorway.

Sherlock heaved the coffee table over with his good foot and, as it landed top side down, brought his heel down on the small, black audio transmitter Mycroft had placed underneath.

“That was one of the most dangerous men you’ll ever meet and not our problem anymore,” Sherlock growled as he scattered the parts with the toe of his shoe. “ _Putain d’emmerdeur fanatique_.”

“Was that a bug!” John cried out, shooting himself from the sofa to get a closer look. He stooped to look at the tiny electronic pieces in awe, and the very idea that John was impressed sent Sherlock into a spiral of jealousy that had him up out of his chair in a flash.

“Whoa,” John huffed and pulled him back, “I thought we talked about this.”

He stopped Sherlock with a steady hand to his shoulder. It was warm, a bit commanding, and Sherlock stopped on one foot to absorb the feeling.

“Come back, yeah? Get off the damn foot, you nut.” John chuckled. “Come on,” he coaxed as one would a toddler, causing Sherlock to turn with a scowl, despite the warmth radiating through him from John’s obvious concern.

“I hate him,” Sherlock announced, as if John hadn’t already figured that out.

They hobbled back to his chair and John helped him to sit again.

“I’ll make tea and you can tell me all about it,” John said, still obviously laughing about Sherlock’s overreaction. He bent to scoop up the bits of spy gear from the floor and righted the table. The magazines and ashtray and other detritus he left for his return.

Sherlock watched as John puttered around in the kitchen, a new sort of warmth blossoming in the face of this domesticity. This was their home now. Their shared space. He’d succeeded in luring John into his web (possibly the wrong connotation but still apt) and now they would surely find a natural rhythm, a fusion of selves so seamless as to be irreversible. It was inevitable. Or, at least, Sherlock would make it so.

“I don’t have to work until four,” John announced as he brought Sherlock’s tea. “There’s not much we can do with you out of commission, but we could play Cluedo or something. I saw you have it stuffed into the closet upstairs. And you can vent about your brother, if you want.”

A slow smile spread as Sherlock imagined dominating John in a silly board game. The chance to make John laugh, to get him to tease, to see that confused pout. Brilliant.

“If you’d like,” he agreed regally.

~*~

Though Sherlock would never admit to taking anything as pedestrian as a kip, he did indeed wake up in the sitting room the next night to find dusk had fallen and John had already arrived home from work. He’d hardly seen John all day, as he’d had an early Fundamentals of Medicine class and then work at noon and not stopped home in between, as it would have been out of his way to do so. Sherlock found he’d missed John’s voice and had sought it out from the memory of previous conversations. He’d gotten good at recreating John’s personality in his mind palace and had been reconstructing a lifelike replacement when he’d fallen asleep on the sofa.

The dresser drawer closed upstairs and Sherlock tried, and quite spectacularly failed, not to picture John undressing. An attempt to distract from John’s imagined nude form by guessing his wardrobe choices only lasted around fifteen seconds before he mentally undressed him again.

Like a child’s doll, he dressed and undressed John in the privacy of his mind. If he’d had a good day - the striped jumper. Over John’s head it went… If it had been stressful, though, he’d prefer the thick, navy blue one. Off went the striped jumper, peeled slowly up over his outstretched arms, revealing his taut stomach…

“Oi, you awake?”

Sherlock started, eyes flying open, to find said man waving a hand in front of his face.

“I didn’t mean to wake you if I did,” John went on to apologize as Sherlock blinked up at him.

“No, it’s fine. I…” He trailed off as it became apparent that his light-hearted wardrobe guesses had fallen far left of the mark. “What are you wearing?”

Offended, John glanced down at his attire. A warm looking cardigan in solid crimson buttoned over a checkered blue and white button-up shirt. His dark blue jeans hugged his thighs just so, enough to water Sherlock’s mouth uncontrollably. Same sensible brown loafers as always.

“What’s wrong with my outfit?” John demanded with a worried frown.

“You-“ He had to swallow the excess saliva before fully answering. “You look like somebody’s granddad.”

Hardly inaccurate but… Why was it that Sherlock suddenly wanted to divest John of the attire and not because it was hideous? It was like John had taken his slightly homely attire and turned it on full blast.

John scoffed good-naturedly. “I’ll have you know I got this at H&M. It’s a very ‘In’ look, granddad is.” He smiled and it was like icing on a very attractive cake.

_…Cake! That’s it! Think about Mycroft stuffing his fat face with sweets._

Sherlock gave a vague hum and laid back down, willing his burgeoning erection away with memories of childhood birthday parties. “What’s the occasion, then? Meeting the rugby mates?”

John didn’t answer right away. A frisson of unease skated down Sherlock’s suddenly ridged spine. He glanced over to see John standing awkwardly in the doorway, his coat now in his grasp.

“I’ve a, uh, a date actually. Laila finally got the nerve to ask me out and I accepted, so we’re going to see the new Tom Hardy thriller. She likes actions movies. Can you believe that? I really lucked out.” He chuckled, a forced thing.

The sound of breaking glass filled Sherlock’s ears. He’d done an experiment once, years ago, with shatter patterns of different types of kitchenware; it was possible that was where the audial memory came from. It didn’t matter, really.

He felt as if he’d been pulled from his own dimension into another one - a strange place without light, without heat, without reason. The place he occupied certainly didn’t play by the rules as Sherlock understood them.  

“I’ll be back later tonight. Or maybe not, if all goes well, eh?” John gave another attempt at machismo and failed.

Sherlock knew well the impact words had on the human psyche, but John had turned the particular torture into an art form.

The silence grew twice as awkward and John shuffled in place, the sound of his rubber soles on the rug the only indication, as Sherlock’s eyes had closed to the pain gripping his chest. “I’ll see you later, then.”

Sherlock didn’t, couldn’t, acknowledge, so John left without another word.

He allowed his eyes to open as he scanned possible ways he could have let this happen, why he hadn’t seen it coming. John’s lack of romantic and sexual partners in the last few months, and Sherlock had certainly checked, should have indicated a growing attraction between them. So why this sudden shift away? Had Sherlock been _too_ subtle? He hadn’t meant to be; he’d been giving John a chance to get used to the idea, building familiarity before broaching the subject of a relationship. They wanted each other, he _knew_ they did. So why…

It was the drugs. It had to be. His first instinct had been correct- John was put off by the drug use. Just not enough to keep him from moving in apparently. A doctor’s instinct to protect the weak, that’s all it was, all that he was worth.  Pity.

He curled into himself on the sofa, knees tucked up close to his chest, and refused to breathe. It nearly worked, but the will to survive overrode his stubborn attempt at asphyxia, and he took an involuntary gasp. Blasted respiratory system. Desolation almost got the better of him, until pride broke through and demanded its fair share.

“No. Get up,” he snarled aloud. “Get him back.”

In a flash, he was up, his ankle still giving a token protest he easily ignored on his way down the hall. His laptop was located in the bedroom and, as he waited for it to load, he quickly donned his most impressive attire, a crisp black silk blend button down and his best bespoke slacks. He finished tying his most expensive John Lobb’s and rushed to log into John’s bank account, long since hacked.

“Dammit,” he snarled at the computer screen.

Either they hadn’t arrived at their destination yet or Laila was open minded about more than her taste in film. John’s last transaction had been last night, when they’d ordered a pizza.

He remembered the incredible moments they’d shared just the day before. Stories of Mycroft’s earlier rotund days had nearly rolled John out of his chair.  The correctly predicted teasing over Cluedo had been especially memorable.   

_‘You’re insane! The victim didn’t do it, Sherlock, that’s impossible!’_

Sherlock smiled softly to himself and redoubled his efforts.

Mycroft wasn’t the only one who had access to CCTV.  Sherlock’s was just a tad less legal.

“Got you,” he whispered triumphantly after just a few seconds of scanning the tube feed.

John was found leaving the Underground at Hampstead, and from there he walked a few blocks to small independent cinema on Holly Bush Vale. It was a pretentious little establishment and Sherlock frowned at the choice. Laila’s obviously; John would never try that hard. Would he?

He watched John rock back and forth on his toes as he waited for his date. Sherlock sighed audibly into the quiet of his bedroom, wishing with all his rotten little heart that Laila would be hit by a double decker full of tourists and be unable to make it.

But then there she was, on time presumably, at nine on the dot. John leaned in for a friendly cheek kiss, Sherlock was loathe to witness, and together they went inside. With that decided, he slammed the laptop shut and stormed from the flat.

He caught up to the ‘couple’ halfway through the movie, taking a seat in the back and to the right side of their location. He had a clear line of sight to John, so if he tried anything, Sherlock would know.

Of course, John was the perfect gentleman throughout. Sherlock didn’t know if he was disappointed or relieved, honestly. He waited, not playing the least bit attention to the film, as John laughed at things Liza whispered in his ear. When John responded to these comments Sherlock felt his blood simmer, but these were just innocent moments. Nothing to cause a scene over. Not that he _wanted_ to cause a scene…

When the couple got up, Sherlock dove for the floor and hoped his coat shrouded him from the soft lighting of the aisle way. Once the coast was clear, he followed behind, mixing with the heavy crowd outside, until they rounded the corner toward the trendy restaurants on Holly Hill. Sherlock nearly intervened when Laiya stopped at an expensive Greek eatery, and John’s fingers flexed against his jeans. Didn’t she know he hated Greek? Didn’t she care? And to have no concern for his budget, unforgivable!

Sherlock walked swiftly by, noting their table as they removed their coats and sat. If Sherlock didn’t know better, which he certainly did, he would say John was having a great time. Was that reason enough to interrupt? He waited for something overt to happen, something worthy of interruption, so John could no longer mistake Sherlock’s intentions. He imagined glaring down at Lia with cold eyes, showing her her place, far away from John preferably. He imagined taking John by the hand and leading him away from goat cheese feta and olives toward the Thai place where Sherlock had once tripped a robber when he was thirteen. It was an amazing story, he was sure John would agree.

Or maybe John would rather like to do shots of ouzo and wipe his mouth crudely with the back of his hand…

“Pathetic,” Sherlock mumbled and curled up tighter on the bench across the street.

To Sherlock’s surprise, his mobile went off, a text alert. He fished it out of his pocket and silently swore if it was Mycroft snooping on Sherlock while he snooped on John, he’d chuck his phone into the Thames and disappear into the homeless network.

He huffed in relief when he saw it was from Lestrade. _Got a case. Interested?_

_Someone lost their highlighter? Theft of an opening statement?_

Across the street, John choked down dolmadikias with a smile. Sherlock growled and startled a middle aged woman walking a dog. The dog didn’t even have the gumption to growl back.

_You know what? Never mind. I’ll take care of it myself._

Sherlock sneered at the pointless interruption, jamming the mobile back into his pocket in anger.

 _Idiotic. Why do I even bother grooming him?_ Sherlock thought to himself.

He watched John for another twenty minutes, through the chocolate lava cake and coffee, before realizing he’d been so caught up in waiting for the ‘right moment’ to interrupt the date, he’d let the entire thing pass by. It was clear they were winding down, ready to leave.

He got up from the bench, as John and Lyle laughed and pulled their coats on, and walked away. His hands stung with the cold, so he jammed them into his pockets and trudged forward slowly. Perhaps John would spot him and call out…

A full three minutes passed in silence. Sherlock marched on.

No matter. It was the most boring, predictable date of all time, there was no question John would be home within the hour. Sherlock would wait up, perhaps find a movie to watch. They could make popcorn and Sherlock would deduce which actors were having affairs. John had shown a strange fascination with that particular ability. Most likely it had to do with John’s own lack of ability to sense chemistry in others.

Once back at Baker Street, Sherlock flopped down onto the sofa with his newly purchased Bond DVD, and grinned. John loved Bond, he remembered hearing so just recently, though the information had seemed superfluous at the time. He wasn’t sure why John enjoyed the films, having not actually seen one himself, but he was willing to give it a try. Maybe he’d find references to inaccurate MI6 intel that he could casually point out was wrong. John would love that.

He flipped the DVD in the air and caught it; for a long while he did this, until it became obvious that John, despite all evidence, had not actually found his boring date to be boring, and wouldn’t be coming home.

“Your eyes look like mine,” Sherlock whispered to the lead actor on the DVD case. “That might’ve come in handy.”

He tossed the case onto the table, marched to his bedroom, and didn’t come back out until morning.

~*~

John hadn’t come home until very late that morning, and gone straight to bed. Sherlock would have liked to have been waiting up for him, in the dark perhaps, and ambushed him for details, but he knew there was no information pertaining to the couple’s late night activities Sherlock could have stomached. His imagination, though lacking in practical knowledge, was quite up to the task of supplying torturous images of its own.

Had they gone to a pub after? John would have loved the chance to show off his dancing ability, so maybe he would have drug her to a club instead. Dancing with a woman wasn’t something Sherlock had seen John do, and knowing what constituted dancing in a gay bar probably wouldn’t fly in the kind of place Olivia would venture, Sherlock wasn’t able to fully visualize it.

What he _was_ able to visualize was John’s glistening throat as his torso wrapped itself around a willing male partner. He’d seen it enough times, after all, chasing John through club after club, watching him drink his weight in alcohol, before throwing himself at any and all who’d catch him. Which was a seemingly endless line of cheerful club goers. Sherlock had a hell of a time steering safe, clean men in John’s direction; it was almost a full time occupation. His reward was getting to occasional witness John in his element, dancing, touching, seducing or being seduced.

God, how he missed those nights sometimes. But in trade, Sherlock had received John’s undivided attention at home, or out on the occasional case. Why hadn’t they been able to maintain that? If Sherlock didn’t know any better, he’d think John was frightened off. Moving in full time warranted a female buffer? Was he really so opposed to growing closer?

Perhaps if Sherlock had suggested a more sexual relationship first thing? Hooked him in with physical satisfaction, then approached the concept of a more permanent situation?

It didn’t matter, it was too late to speculate.

John had a class today at eight, and despite only rolling into bed around four, he was already up for the day. Sherlock could hear him puttering around in the sitting room. He didn’t want to go out but his insatiable curiosity got the better of him, as always.   

By the time he’d gathered the courage, John was laying supine on the lower half of the sofa, legs dangling off the end, feet kicking to some song played through his headphones. He toyed with his phone, oblivious to Sherlock’s perusal from the doorway.

Sherlock was overwhelmed by the urge to crawl between John’s arms, bury his head into the crook of John’s neck, to feel the warmth of his chest against his own.

“We can’t be friends anymore.”

John glanced up, pulling the right headphone away from his ear. “Did you say something?”

Sherlock stared back for long time, long enough for John to frown at him in irritation. That line, that furrow… Damn it, even John’s scowl was a part of Sherlock now.

“I said you’re going to be late for class.”

John glanced back down at his phone and swore. He leapt up and dove for his coat, dodging around Sherlock for his shoes.

“Hey, I’ve got another date tonight, so don’t text unless it’s really important. Like a death or something.”

Sherlock glanced down at his bare feet, toes curling hard into the carpet. “I won’t.”

“I mean, if it’s absolutely necessary, you could reach me. You know that, right?”

Sherlock glanced up to find John staring at him, worry etched around his eyes. Pity again. He couldn’t stand it.

“I’ve managed to survive this long without you, John, I’ll keep until tomorrow.” He brushed past John and back into the hall, slamming the door to the loo hard enough to rattle the medicine cabinet.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” John bellowed back, trying for stern but it was more likely he found Sherlock’s tantrum humorous. Seconds later the front door slammed.

John’s blatant refusal to see Sherlock’s pain had his skin itching, like it was wrapped too tightly around his bones, near splitting. He thought about it, he really did, doing the very thing he’d sworn to John just two days prior to never do again. Because the pain could be assuaged, he knew it could, it could be swept aside with a rush of liquid opiates or a powdered gram of amphetamines.  John would be in classes until four o’clock, then onto his date until late, if last night’s success was any indicator.  Sherlock could score his chosen poison and be sober again before John ever noticed anything amiss.

Sherlock would know. And once he started down that path again, it would start a train wreck of consequences; his brother the least of those calamities.

Just the thought of John’s disappointment had Sherlock curling up on the floor near the tub. How would he continue to live like this? Aching, wanting, on the outside looking in…

_No way out… No recourse…_

_No… Think!_

He leapt up, scrambling to pull himself from the floor, to reach the medicine cabinet. He pulled the mirror open so hard it hit the wall and bounced back. Snarling, he held it back until he could catalog the contents of the shelf.

Pain reliever, cotton balls, rubbing alcohol, close but no...Ah ha!

He snatched a bottle of grape cough medicine and proceeded to chug the entire contents until it was empty. A shiver wracked his chest but he ignored his instinct to throw up. Warm pride lit him in its place. John could have no complaints against _legal, medicinal_ oblivion. No one could rival Sherlock’s intellectual prowess.

He grinned savagely back at himself in the mirror, thrilled to have found a safe form of escape from emotional turmoil. Any second now he’d not care if John shagged his way across campus, up the stairs, and onto the sofa in the sitting room.

His grin turned sickly. Apparently the effects of the cough medicine hadn’t kicked in yet. Or perhaps he needed more.

 

~*~

 

“Get him up, get him up! Back of the squad, steady on.”

Sherlock heaved, stomach protesting the sudden movement, as his weight was carried between two burly officers. At least he assumed they were officers by their abrasive uniforms and the stench of stale coffee. It was a mystery unto itself that he was still able to deduce in his condition.

“Goddamn it, Sherlock. Your brother is going to have my head,” Lestrade’s voice filtered in past the sound of his own labored breathing.

“Sod him,” he growled back, tongue tacky with remains of syrup. “Nothing illegal.”

Lestrade scoffed. “Oh, my mistake. You’re right, ingesting three bottles of cough syrup, perfectly sound life choice. Christ.”

Sherlock could tell just by the tone that Lestrade was running his hand nervously through his hair, a tick that would see him bald before the age of thirty, Sherlock had no doubt. But as Sherlock could barely keep his eyes open he wasn’t positive.

Time passed in the back of the panda, voices came and went, easily forgotten in favour of drifting on the sea of innocuous purple cough suppressant. Why hadn’t he discovered this option years ago?

“Oh, thank god you’re here,” Lestrade praised whomever had arrived, relief belaying the possibility that he’d contacted Mycroft. The two had crossed paths once or twice and the animosity was always palpable.

“What happened?”

Sherlock sat up at that, over shooting his mark and landing soundly against the opposite door.

John stared through the window, meeting Sherlock’s wide eyes, looking so frightened it hurt to see.

“He’s loaded up on Boot’s cough suppressants. Found three empty bottles tucked into his coat.”

John frowned. “How did he get here?”

“I texted him yesterday about a case, he didn’t want in, was being a twat actually but he begged me an hour ago to be let into the investigation. I shouldn’t have said yes but…”

“You need his help,” John finished. Lestrade grunted his reluctant agreement and Sherlock sneered, though neither man was watching to see it. “Is he well enough to move?”

“I suppose. Threw most of it up in the bushes there,” he motioned at the hedges surrounding the front of the building, “where we found him lying face down in it. You can probably skip hospital but that’s your prerogative. If his brother catches wind of this, Sherlock will be hung out to dry.”

“Bollocks!” Sherlock shouted through the door. “Cough syrup is perfectly legal! I’ve put a lot of thought into this!”

John turned an interesting shade of red and pointed sharply at Sherlock through the window. “You shut your trap! I’ll deal with you in a moment.”

He turned away and pulled Lestrade far enough from the car that Sherlock couldn’t hear. Try as he might the door to the car wouldn’t budge. He tried the other side but no such luck. How was he to sneak away if he couldn’t even get the blasted door open?

Eventually the strain from tugging on the door handle became too much and he slumped against it in exhaustion. His pounding pulse echoed around his body like the bass from a song he’d once heard. It pulled him away from the muffled, worried conversation outside the car to a moment in time, not so long ago, when John had first torn his shirt off in sweat induced frustration. The memory was as clear as if he were watching it happen for the first time.

He’d wanted then; wanted to touch, to grip, to pull, to taste. But he’d held back for fear of rejection. It had already become apparent John didn’t touch the same man twice, but, oh, how he wanted. The best Sherlock could do was watch from afar and steer men of a certain caliber toward John, for his own safety.

Inside the confines of the police vehicle, Sherlock whimpered and slid down until his head met the cool leather material of the seat. It smelled of alcohol and sick but notice of it was tucked away in the background, as memory of why he’d gotten stupidly drunk on cough syrup began to surface.

“John, I’m sorry. I should have said something. You thought I was nothing but a friend and I betrayed that with my desires. I’m sorry, John, I’m sorry. I won’t touch you, I promise, just don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.” He tugged his coat up around his ears, a futile attempt to block out the sound of his own voice.

“What’s he on about?” Lestrade questioned softly.

“I haven’t the faintest. He speaks French when he’s upset or distracted.”

Sherlock found himself pulled upright. He tried to open his eyes but they were too heavy.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, hoping the language was right, as well as the sentiment.

John heaved a sigh and tugged him up and out of the car. They stumbled a bit but John got him around the middle and drug him into another waiting vehicle.

“You’re fine, mate. You’re gonna be fine,” John crooned as they slid inside. He gave the cabbie - Sherlock was sure they were now in a cab - their address and Sherlock was pleased to learn they were heading home together.

The momentum of the car pulling away caused Sherlock to slide into John, who righted him with a steady hand to his shoulder.

“What happened, Sherlock? You promised,” John whispered after a beat. Or it felt like a moment to Sherlock, he couldn’t be sure.

“It’s brilliant, really,” he preened. “Cough medicine has just enough alcohol to inebriate but it’s completely legal. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner.”

“You know what, on second thought, I don’t want to know.”

Sherlock flinched at the menace in John’s voice. He cracked his eyelids open enough to see John hunched angrily against the opposite door, eyes on the passing London streets. He was livid.

“You’re mad at me,” Sherlock deduced aloud.

John glanced over at that. “Brilliant, yeah. Marvelous, Sherlock, really. I _am_ mad at you.”

Sherlock flinched further away, tucking in on himself. “But… I didn’t do anything illegal.”

John gaped down at him. “Is that what you think? That’s all we care about? You doing something _illegal!_ ” He scoffed in disbelief and turned away.            

Sherlock let his eyes lids fall back down, shutting out the sight of John’s anger. He never meant for John to look upon him with such disgust - he’d actively avoided it if anything - but it seemed, yet again, he’d disappointed someone he cared about.

He curled tighter and hoped the cab crashed and threw him into the partition.

John sighed from across the seat. “Sherlock… I’m sorry. I’m just worried about you.”

It made little difference. He’d heard the same from Mycroft just before men in white coats strapped him to a bed and left him to rot in agony for days at a time. Sherlock tuned anything else John said out for the remainder of the drive.

He was vaguely aware of John half-carrying him up into the flat, but it seemed like floating to Sherlock. He went willingly where John led.

Eventually he was deposited onto his bed and rolled out of his coat. His shoes came off next and he had to curl his toes away from the cold air of his bedroom. Around the time he felt John unbuttoning his shirt he managed to find the energy to crack his eyes open again.

John stopped his ministrations and stared back down, a look of both guilt and frustration.

“Didn’t want you to ruin your shirt,” John explained softly in the quiet of the room.

Sherlock merely watched as John finished and pulled the silk away from his shoulders.  John stood and hung the shirt from the knob of his wardrobe. Had Sherlock been in his right mind, he’d have chastised John for being so thoughtful. It wasn’t necessary. It wasn’t worth it. He wasn’t-

“I expect you threw up everything in your stomach,” John muttered, half to himself, as he went about bringing Sherlock things he’d need should he get sick again. A bucket, a glass of water, some paracetamol, and all the while Sherlock watched John’s comings and goings with a curious eye. It took everything in him to keep his eyes open but he did.

“There,” John said as he set the last of it down, “that should be enough for now. Sit up a bit, drink some of this water.”

He complied. Though his stomach disagreed, Sherlock’s acid-burnt throat thanked John for the forethought. When he finished half the glass, John helped Sherlock back down.

“Now, how do you feel?” He asked.

Sherlock croaked, “Confused.”

John cocked his head and frowned, that little line Sherlock both hated and adored appeared but he was too tired to smooth it. As if he would if he _had_ been able.

“Confused? About what?”

“Why…” He had to close his eyes and will himself not to be ill for a moment, before he tried again. “Why are you taking care of me?”

“Sherlock,” John breathed, a hint of chastising. “Christ.”

He felt the bed indent by his head, far below where his pillows lay. Instinctively, Sherlock shuffled closer to the warmth of John’s body. After several seconds, Sherlock felt John’s hand come down and softly run over his hair. He could have purred, so content was he in that moment, but as it was all he could do was let out a satisfied sigh.

“I don’t know what you want from me, you know,” John mumbled some time later.

Sherlock was well on his way to unconsciousness at that point, barely able to conjure up the will to respond, but he did. Perhaps he was dreaming after all, what did it matter?

“Just you, John. I just want you.”

John’s hand felt heavy in his hair, fingers curling in and scratching against his scalp. If he’d been awake, Sherlock would have moaned.

“What does that mean, exactly?”

“That I love you,” he whispered back, the exhalation barely heavy enough to warm the sheet pressed against his cheek. He’d have been worried at the confession, if all of it weren’t a dream.

What seemed like hours later, John responded.

“Say that to me again in the morning and you’ll have me.”

 

~*~

 

And then, suddenly - light, agonizingly bright, streaming through the windows.

“Go away,” he growled at the sun, drawing a pillow to shield his face.

Blessed darkness enveloped him once again and he sighed, curling against the down-filled case to protect it with his body. It was his only ally against the enemy ninety-three million miles away. His stomach roiled and rebelled but he didn’t think the pillow could help with that.

“Sherlock?” John’s voice came from beyond the door, accompanied by a soft knock.

He merely groaned in response.

“Sherlock, you awake? I’ve got some tea and toast if you think you can hold it down.”

Without prompting, John shoved the door open with his shoulder and tip-toed inside, laden with a tray of Mrs. Hudson’s, though Sherlock doubted she was aware of its absence as she didn’t bustle in behind John. It hosted two mugs of steaming tea and a plate of dry toast, honey and jam both beside.

“I can’t possibly keep that down,” Sherlock informed, peeking from under his pillow.

John sat, the tray lowered gently beside him. “Try at least. It’s not doing your stomach any favours, staying empty like that.”

Slowly, so as not to tip the tray, and also so John didn’t think he was in charge, Sherlock rose from his pillow cover. The light from the window had him blinking away at the painful stabs to his retinas.

“Here,” John muttered and moved to close the curtains tighter.

“Thank you,” Sherlock muttered back. He wasn’t sure why John was being so kind but he’d take it, for as long as it lasted. He remembered the look of disgust on John’s face, just before he’d passed out in the cab. Getting home was a blur but he assumed he must have been well enough to get himself into bed.

“Try a bit of tea for me, please.” John handed the mug over, which Sherlock grasped reluctantly.

It had cooled enough that he could sip easily and found, to his displeasure, that the mint blend was actually quite soothing to his upset stomach. John didn’t need to know that however, so after a few cursory sips, he set the mug back down.

“Did I make it to the crime scene yesterday?” He asked to fill the silence.

John’s head turned slightly towards him from where he’d been looking at the framed periodic table on the wall.

“What do you remember?” John asked the bedspread.

“Leaving the flat, walking to the corner shop for more cough suppressant, texting Lestrade, being asked onto a real case. After that…” He rubbed at his wrist. “Not a lot.”

John’s jaw flexed. He only did that when he was upset or angry. Sherlock tried not to tense up more because of it, his muscles already sore from twitching, but he could hardly help it. Another reprimand from John would crush him entirely, he knew.

“You made it to the crime scene, but to hear Greg tell it, you only made it as far as the hedges before getting sick. Going by the stain on your teeth, I’d assume it was grape flavoured then?”

Sherlock chuckled darkly, licking at his teeth self-consciously. “Yes, good deduction.”

John didn’t look amused. He lifted his own mug and drank most of the tea in one go.

“Do you remember coming back to the flat?” He asked next, an almost ominous air about him. Sherlock was baffled why this mattered more than the simple fact that he’d nearly overdosed on purple cough medicine.

“It’s not clear,” Sherlock hedged. “I remember getting into the cab and… you… not being thrilled with my actions. But I don’t remember arriving or getting into bed.”

“Course not,” John agreed softly, almost to himself. He shot the last of his tea and set the mug down on the tray with a clank. “Shall I leave the toast?”

Sherlock didn’t answer. He was too busy looking John over for clues. Something had happened when they’d gotten home. Had he tried something inappropriate? It normally took a lot of willpower not to throw himself at John day to day; under the influence of a narcotic, who knew what he would have done? But no, if Sherlock had done something to upset John in that way, he’d know by now. John would hardly have brought him breakfast in bed. More likely John was upset that he’d have to reiterate his speech about no drugs of any kind.

Sherlock waited for him to start but John seemed to be waiting on an answer to his question.

“Oh, yes, I suppose I’ll try to eat.” He lifted a slice of toast and nibbled on the corner, despite his nerves protesting the maneuver.

“Good. I’ll leave this here. Just holler if you need anything else.” With that, John quit the room.

Sherlock opened his mouth to call him back, but the door snicked shut with an air of finality. Stupid, really, to even bother. If John didn’t feel up to repeating his previous lecture, Sherlock should be grateful.

He sucked the stale, day old syrup from the back of his teeth and swore to himself, he’d do everything in his power to keep John Watson. He’d make John see their potential and if that meant just being his friend while he worked out his… current female issues… then so be it. Sherlock would be the best friend John Watson ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. It gets better. I swear, I swear, I swear. For those still sticking around, thank you, thank you, thank you.  
> (Update) In my infinite sadness over this chapter, I forgot to give you a translation of the French used in this chapter(thank you Whispering_Rain for the reminder!) so here it is:
> 
> Sherlock- "Shut up!"  
> Mycroft- "You're being obvious, little brother."  
> Sherlock- "Your waistline is obvious!"  
> And then after Mycroft leaves- "Overzealous arsehole."
> 
> Super, mega thanks to ErirogPraborRishsh for translating the French in this chapter and chapter one! <3


	5. January Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mixed signals send John off the deep end. Good thing his girlfriend is on top of the situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out again to my amazing betas [pringlesaremydivision](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pringlesaremydivision) and [superblue](http://archiveofourown.org/users/superblue/pseuds/superblue) for their kick ass work on this chapter. They are Lennon and McCartney to my shitty Ringo Star that nobody cares about.  
> Say hello to Victor, Molly, and Irene in this chapter. As per usual I use them simply to drive John up the fucking wall. Hope you enjoy.

Sherlock was a terror. A mute miasma of plucked strings and flapping coat tails. A minefield of psychosis and human remains - one wrong move and something would explode. Ever since the cough syrup incident it was like living with a ringwraith, all black moods and hunting expressions. Sherlock hadn't taken any more questionable substances, as far as John could tell, but John wasn’t sure trading that for this was preferable.

The weirdest bit though was finding small gifts placed all around the flat, like tiny, unspoken apologies; things like his favourite nibbles, or crime novels, or new pairs of socks. When John asked about them Sherlock would just shrug or grunt, as if he had no idea how they'd come to be there. It was bizarre. John had no idea what to make of it.

Even stranger still, John didn't receive a Christmas gift from Sherlock. Maybe that would have seemed too obvious, John mused. They had both left for Christmas break and come home to even worse moods than what they’d left in, which was saying something. Previous to Christmas, John had tried to be sensitive to Sherlock’s addictions, possibly overcompensating with an overly sunny disposition after the gut wrenchingly awful...no…he wasn’t going to dwell on that, he’d done that enough after the fact, replayed that moment over and over in the last few weeks-

_That I love you…_

-and it had done no good. Dealing with his family for five horrendous days certainly hadn’t helped. His sister had tried bringing her girlfriend home, to disastrous results, everyone but John had been drunk, his grandmum was dying… it was all around shit. After the day he’d had, coming home that morning to Sherlock’s black mood, and now to find the mess Sherlock was playing in... John was just done.

He dropped his bag in the doorway and groaned. “Sherlock, you promised.”

Yet again, Sherlock was dissecting what had once been a necessary bit of a human being on their kitchen table, regardless of John’s request to not do those things when he knew John was expecting company.

“Sherlock, I know you can hear me, get rid of it. Laila’s due any second. _Please_.”

When no response was forthcoming, John contemplated physically assaulting his flatmate. It was possible he could affect a response with violence, and since Sherlock hadn’t initiated a round of boxing matches since the last incident, it might have actually been fun, but no, he’d try verbal communication one last time before shoving Sherlock to the floor.

“Bon jour,” he tried, a bit sarcastically.

Sherlock’s head snapped up at that.

“Can’t believe that worked,” John mumbled with a chuckle. “Are you in there? I’ve been talking to you.”

Sherlock blinked at John for a few seconds but then went back to his organ carving. “Your accent is atrocious.”

“Oh, apologies, my liege. Not everyone spent their summers in Toulon.”

Sherlock’s spine went ridged at that, as it was wont to do when John mentioned something from ‘the night that shan’t be named.’ John sometimes wondered if Sherlock remembered more from that night than he let on, but what would be the point in asking?

“Sorry,” Sherlock eventually mumbled, “what were you saying?”

“I asked you to put away the… enlarged pancreas,” John guessed, to which Sherlock inclined his head, “since you know very well that Laila is on her way up for our study session. You were, oh-so-conveniently ignoring me.”

“I wasn’t ignoring you, I was _thinking_. Something people do when they’re not too busy giving in to the base urge to procreate.” Sherlock’s frown was evident even in profile.

John grinned wide at the little dig. “We are going to actually study, you know. I hadn’t planned on having a go at her right there on the sofa.”

Sherlock bristled. “I should hope not.” He dug the scalpel into the lower half of the pancreas with the skill and menace of Jack the Ripper.

“And since you’ve given up trying to teach me anything,” John pointed out, “I’ve got to study with someone.”

Sherlock looked up at that with more anger than John had seen in weeks. “I never once said I wouldn’t study with you,” he practically hissed.

John stared, completely bewildered by this overly vehement response. Were they even having the same conversation? John’s suddenly racing pulse thought not.

Before he could summon a reply, John’s mobile rang out from his coat pocket. He fished it out, saw that it was Laila, and turned to mumble, “I’ve got to take this.”

Sherlock merely shrugged. John rolled his eyes and turned to answer the phone.

“Hey,” he greeted, “all right? Not caught in the snow are you?”

_“John, I’m so sorry. I can’t come. My little brother crashed his car, and I’m with my parents right now, on our way to see him in hospital.”_

“Oh! Of course, yeah, go be with your family. Is he all right?”

 _“Yeah,”_ she breathed, _“he’s going to be fine, they say. Just a small slide into a parked car, but he hit his head on the steering wheel so they’re going to keep him overnight.”_

“Right, of course.”

_“I’m so sorry, John. We both needed to be studying tonight. I’ll thump Roger good for making us lose valuable study time.”_

John laughed. “It’s fine. Probably best not to thump someone who might have a concussion.”

 _“Of course, doctor,”_ Laila purred, knowing what it did to John.

He turned further away from the kitchen and muttered, “Stop it,” teasingly into the phone.

Sherlock groaned.

 _“Never,”_ Laila replied. _“I’ll give you a call later if I manage to get out early, all right?”_

“Sure. I’ll be up half the night cramming.”

 _“You going to study with Sherlock the same way you study with me?”_ She slyly asked.

John groaned into the phone and walked further into the sitting room, further away from Sherlock. “Seriously, stop it.”

 _“Never,”_ she sing-songed into the phone again. _“I told you, he’s your one freebie.”_

“It’s not funny. What if he heard you say that?”

_“Shit, John, sorry, I’ve got to go. We’re here. I’ll call you, yeah?”_

John pinched his nose and said his goodbyes. He knew she meant well, had never stopped believing John was arse-over-teakettle for Sherlock, not that he could blame her, but he had asked repeatedly for her to drop it. It was painful, not to mention embarrassingly pathetic, and god forbid Sherlock should catch wind of it. John had been turned down four times now…

God, just thinking about ‘studying’ with Sherlock…

Laila had constructed a fun little exercise in which they asked each other questions from the others textbooks and for each correctly answered question, an article of clothing came off. Study sessions of those nature generally didn’t last long.

John didn’t think he’d last through the suggestion of one, should Sherlock be so inclined.

“So, she’s not coming then?”

John jumped, his skin heating to an embarrassing degree at being caught with his proverbial pants down.

“Ah,” he stuttered, “yeah, no. Her brother, car wreck. Nothing serious.”

Sherlock nodded absently, clearly not giving two figs for someone he’d never met. “I’ll help if you want. I mean,” he waved at John’s bag, “not if you think you have everything you need. Just thought since, I mean you did say-”

“No, you can help,” John rushed out, “that would be fine. Yeah.”

“Good. I’ll just put away the pancreas.”

John smiled as Sherlock rushed to close the bits up in a plastic sandwich container of Mrs. Hudson’s. Sherlock hadn’t initiated contact in weeks, and it felt like seeing the sun again after an endless storm. John moved to grab his bag, brought it over to his chair and sat. Sherlock followed behind, falling into his own chair with an excited air.

John briefly wondered if Sherlock had felt ignored as well since John had started dating Laila but quickly dismissed the idea. On more than one occasion he’d asked Sherlock out with his group of friends, only to be strongly and undeniably turned down. If he wanted attention, he only had to ask. John was more than willing to give it, in whichever way that Sherlock wanted or needed.

“So, what are studying now? On to dissection yet?”

John studied Sherlock’s professional tutor mien, thinking of the grief he'd been giving these past few weeks, only to be offered civility now out of the blue.  “I’m not sure how I let you talk me into this,” he mumbled, unwilling to let Sherlock off the hook so easily.

“What? You said you needed to study. Am I not the best tutor in the United Kingdom?”

“Humble too,” John quipped, settling into his chair. “Anyway, that’s not what I meant. I was talking about you talking me into being your flatmate.”

Sherlock frowned again, this time in clear confusion.

John went on to explain, “Not everyone would stick around after being threatened with a blowtorch, you know.”

The frown turned into an immediate scowl; hands went straight up into the air. “Oh, that was one time!”

“That was _this morning_ , you bloody psychopath. Don’t think one offer of tutelage is going to make me forget.”

“I’m a high-functioning sociopath,” he growled, “not a psychopath.”

John laughed outright at that. Poor sod probably believed that too. “You are not.”

“I bloody well am! Don’t you try and diagnose me, John Watson, you’re not even through your first year of pre-med.”

“You are not,” John continued on, quite sure of himself.

“Oh, so you really believe I’m a psychopath, then? Well, don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out!” Sherlock crossed his arms over his chest and flopped back against the chair.

John felt the achingly familiar twist of affection in his guts, the one that told him it was perfectly fine if he bundled Sherlock up in his arms and squeezed him to death. A thousand hetero encounters couldn’t kill that feeling, John knew that now, but damn if he was going to stop trying. He couldn’t live with the feeling for much longer; he’d explode first.

“You are not a psychopath or sociopath, Sherlock. You’re one of the biggest bleeding hearts I know.” His lips twitched when Sherlock whipped his head over to stare at John in horror. “You are, you can’t hide it from me. Hell, the only reason you threatened me with crispiness this morning was so I didn’t mess with the evidence from that cold case you somehow weaseled from Greg. Don’t think I don’t know about that. Puzzles, you call them, but I see a man who is willing to help because he’s the only one who can.”

Sherlock slunk back down, petulant to the end, and remained silent. There was a chance, John wasn’t sure, the lighting wasn’t the best in their corner of the room, but Sherlock might have been blushing. He stayed curled half away though, silent and sullen. John most assuredly did not use the time to study the curve of Sherlock’s waist to hip ratio.

Eventually John spoke up again. “Where _do_ you get the body parts? I’ve never thought to ask.”

Sherlock seemed surprised by the question, his head tilted back towards John, but he answered readily enough. “Molly Hooper. Final year Forensics student. She’s got a key to the lab and lets me borrow certain… items, from time to time.”

John chuckled at that, picturing Sherlock making off with a whole leg under hot pursuit of campus security. “I bet. And what do you give her in return? Tips on the stock market?”

“Nothing. She fancies me, I simply exploit that fact.”

John froze, even though he hadn’t really been moving. He felt something snap inside his chest...and then something dark crawled out. He pictured red lips on Sherlock’s pale cheek, red nails raking those strong forearms, and John thought the black treacle in his chest might very well crawl out of his mouth.

“She what?” He whispered softly, as if he’d misunderstood.

“Molly? She thinks I’m mysterious… or something, I don’t know. Why? Worried I’ll corrupt an innocent?” Sherlock cocked that damn eyebrow at John, as if he were being strange, which he was.

“Would you?” John heard himself ask with no input from his brain.

Sherlock tilted his head slightly, his body rolling to follow, and he studied John like he would a mold spore under a microscope. John willed away any treacherous blood thinking to redden his face.

Sherlock finally answered. “Of course not. She’s smart,” he allowed, “easily the best pathology student they’ve got at the moment, but she’s obvious. It’s tiring watching her try so hard.”

John relaxed at Sherlock’s easy dismissal. He had no right to be jealous, but there it was.  He wracked his brain to remember a Molly Hooper but try as he might he couldn’t put a face to the name.

“Just don’t break any beating hearts over the non-beating ones,” John teased, as if the idea of Sherlock flirting back didn’t absolutely devastate him.

Sherlock frowned as if the idea were absurd. John laughed along.

“You know-” John didn’t get to finish the thought before being interrupted.

“Hoo hoo,” Mrs. Hudson gave her customary greeting before knocking the door open with an elbow. She came bearing, of all things, a gift box of what looked like rather expensive scotch with accompanying crystal tumblers. “Ta da!” She exclaimed happily, holding out the gift.

Sherlock shot out of his chair and bowled into her. John shouted about the same time Mrs. Hudson did, shocked by Sherlock bustling her out the door. Or trying valiantly to do so, Mrs. Hudson wasn’t making it easy. She huffed and puffed while Sherlock did his best to steer her away.

“Sherlock, what the hell has gotten into you?” John snapped, standing to pull him away from the poor woman.

“Honestly, you great fool,” Mrs. Hudson threw over her shoulder, “it’s just a birthday, it’s not the end of the world.”

That bit of leaked information seemed to deflate Sherlock - cat out of the bag as it were. John found himself grinning at the berk.

“You never said it was your birthday!”

“Yes, obviously. And for good reason,” he spit at Mrs. Hudson, snarling at her as if she were Brutus to his Caesar.

Sherlock gave up trying to rush her away now that his reason for doing so was made pointless. John moved forward to take the box from her and set it in the kitchen.

“You shouldn’t have gone to the trouble, Mrs. H,” John said. “The last thing Sherlock needs is to get drunk after all.”

“Oh, I know, dear, but I thought you could both enjoy it together. That’s safe enough, isn’t it?” She asked, innocence embodied.

John steadfastly refused to look at Sherlock, though he knew the man was looking at him, most likely noting his reddened ears. How was he rationalizing these tells? Did he file them away and delete them?

“Yes, I’m sure John will come up with something creative to pass the time,” Sherlock drawled.

Sweat popped along John’s spine.

“You’re good boys,” she went on, either oblivious or the greatest actor of all time. “I trust you to stay out of trouble. It’s not every day a boy tur-”

“Yes! Thank you Mrs. Hudson.” Sherlock finished what he’d attempted before, by quite forcefully walking the woman out the door, hissing in her ear the whole way.

“Well how was I to know?” John heard come from down the hall. He frowned to himself. Sherlock was hiding something, no doubt about that.

By the time Sherlock returned, John had sat at the kitchen table, finger tracing the lip of the crystal glass he’d removed. Sherlock stood in the doorway and watched.

John looked up. “Probably best not to, right?”

Sherlock seemed to hesitate, mouth opened on an answer and then closed again. He finally settled on a nonchalant, “Entirely up to you.”

“I don’t really approve, considering,” he hedged quietly, “but…” He couldn’t help but look away, nervous in this absurd crossroad he’d been handed. Sherlock was damn near acknowledging the ‘something’ between them. What John wouldn’t do to get him to at least admit it. Lord knew he couldn’t seem to do it sober.

_You’re crossing that fucking line again, John. Stop this now. Think about Laila._

“Shouldn’t,” John whispered.

“Maybe,” Sherlock stopped and cleared his throat, tried again. “Perhaps just one glass. Would be a shame to waste such an expensive gift.”

“Right,” John latched on. “It was thoughtful, if a bit…” The proper word escaped him.

“Incendiary,” Sherlock finished.

They stared at each other.

_You know what we’re doing, don’t you?_

_Of course, John._

“I’ll get some ice.” John flew from his seat, knowing at the very least they had ice now.

“Heresy,” Sherlock announced, mock-serious. “This is a twelve year, single-malt Royal Lochnagar, John. You _do not_ add ice.”

He stopped with his hand on the fridge door. “Oh.”

“It’s to be enjoyed by itself, savoured without dilution. Come, sit back down.”

“All right.” John consented, bowing to Sherlock’s greater knowledge.

He watched as the amber liquid was poured, a perfect two fingers in each glass. Already, the aroma had reached across the table to John’s side, causing saliva to pool in his mouth. Flashbacks of his uncle’s den passed in front of John’s mind, his sister and her friends egging him on to chug the bottle of hundred quid scotch. He’d choked most of it out and gotten his arse beat for his troubles. He hoped this experiment went better.

Sherlock slid his glass over to John and lifted his own.

“To another year older?” John offered.

“And another year wiser,” Sherlock added with a solemn air.

They clinked glasses and took their first sip. Sherlock’s went down smooth, the air of a man well-versed in aged whiskey. Of course John wasn’t so well-versed.

“Christ, that’s-” he glanced up at Sherlock, who was doing his best not to laugh outright, “smooth.”

“Quite,” Sherlock agreed, lips twitching at the corners.

John, never one to back down from a challenge, took another sip. It went down like gasoline.

“It’s got notes of coffee,” Sherlock noted, the snobby fuck. “I quite like it. I’ll have to remember to thank Mrs. Hudson.”

Another sip, still as hot as the last. “I can detect notes of… fuck-all, this tastes like liquid hot piss. I can’t-”

Sherlock choked on his next sip, laughing as John ran for the fridge. “John, c’mon,” he coughed out, “ice will only water it down, it’ll do nothing for the taste.”

“No,” he agreed, pulling a bottle of Coke from the fridge, “but this will.”

“My god. Have you no shame?” Sherlock watched John approach the table as if he held a live snake.

John grinned and proceeded to dump caramelized sugar syrup into the expensive scotch. Sherlock was beside himself.

The first sip went down a hell of a lot smoother than the preceding ones.

“Better?” Sherlock queried, nose still in the air.

“Oh, yeah. Much.” John gulped away.

“You know, John, the point of good scotch is to taste it. What you’ve done is…” He trailed off when John started giving him the jerk-off motion. “My brother would be appalled.” He glanced over at John’s bottle of Coke with renewed interest.

Sherlock held out his glass and John’s answering smirk as he poured was slow but heartfelt.

“Better?” John drawled as Sherlock took his first sip.

“It’s atrocious.” He gulped the whole thing. “I love it. Mix me another.”

John laughed obscenely loud at that.

~*~

He should have known they wouldn’t have just one glass. By John’s count they had been sitting at something like five apiece when one of them, he couldn’t remember who, decided it was a brilliant idea to upend the whole bottle of scotch into the bottle of Coke, and so they could just passing it back and forth from their spots on the sofa.

“I swear she did!”

“She did not.” Sherlock hiccuped.

“She did! She said, ‘And if you don’t like it, you can lick my hairy twat!’  Left her girlfriend standing there in the hall and just ran out like it wasn’t negative five outside. I had to go get her and drag her back, the crazy bitch.”

“Don’t call your sister a bitch, John,” Sherlock admonished.

“Hey, she’s _my_ sister. Only I can call her a bitch. And she is, a bitch that is. Crazy as well, I don’t mind saying. I don’t mind a bitchy woman, you know, but she’s crazy too. It’s a bad combination, crazy and bitchy. Trust me.”

“I do. I believe you, John. I’m sorry, you can call her a bitch if you want.”

“Thank you.” John took the bottle back and upended it. Seeing how far gone it was, John felt the itching suspicion they’d done something a bit not good. “Did we… Have we finished a whole bottle of scotch by ourselves?”

Sherlock leant in close to the plastic bottle, studied the leftover brown sludge and then looked back up. “Yep,” he announced with another hiccup.

“Christ. That’s bad, right?” He took another swig.

“No, see, we finished between the two of us,” Sherlock explained, waving and lisping adorably. “Two people finishing one bottle is… not… bad. Simple maths. See?”

John nodded sagely, though he, in fact, did not see, and handed the bottle back over to Sherlock.

“So, you never said,” John slurred, “how was your holiday?”

Sherlock hiccuped, frowned and then listed slightly to the left before answering. “Uneventful, I suppose.”

“Better than mine then. I’ve met your brother but what are your parents like?”

He seemed to ponder the question. “I’m not sure. Compared to what?”

John laughed at that, but Sherlock seemed to be quite serious. “Well… compared to anyone else’s, I would think. Or, you know, just in general. Are they brilliant, like you?”

“Brilliant… like me?”

John thought maybe he was blushing but _everything_ felt flushed, so maybe Sherlock wouldn’t notice. Thinking of it, he pulled his jumper up over his head and tossed it. Sherlock noted this but didn’t comment.

“You know what I mean,” John said with a wave, “you’re a graduate chemist for crying out loud.”

“Oh, yes. Well… Mummy is a mathematician, so I suppose from your perspective, yes, she is a genius. Father… Father is not.” He seemed to think more on it.  “Mycroft is a smug bastard, Mummy is strict, and Father is oblivious. Between the three of them, it’s like my own personal hell. Holidays.” He shivered.

“I can’t quite picture you all round the table for Christmas.” John thought, despite Sherlock’s assurance otherwise, he probably had grown up in a drafty manor house, lonely, left to his own devises.

“Neither can I, that’s why I didn’t go,” Sherlock explained casually, head tilted up at the ceiling.

John sat forward. “You didn’t go?”

Sherlock’s head rolled to look at John. “No.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I would have come home sooner. Christ, if I’d known that I would have just stayed home.”

Sherlock opened his mouth but then promptly closed it. He looked half like he was about to argue. That’s when John remembered they hadn’t exactly been on the best of terms before Christmas break. _Forget all that,_ he thought, _we’re fine now._

“I wasn’t here,” Sherlock ended up explaining after a beat.

“Oh. Where did you go? I didn’t think you had any other family.”

“I have cousins in France but no, I stayed in Camden that week.”

John had, never in his life, he swore, ever been a jealous person, but, fuck, if Sherlock didn’t bring it out in him.

“With who?” He practically growled.

Sherlock leant back, whether unconscious or not, John didn’t know. “With nobody.” John let a breath out. “I have a bolt hole there, the only one Mycroft doesn’t know about. I had to, lest he kidnap me for the holiday season. He wasn’t thrilled, obviously, but that was just icing on the cake as far as I’m concerned.”

“Christ, Sherlock. You could have… I don’t know. Come stayed with me.”

Sherlock blinked at him. “No, John. I don’t think so.”

There it was again. The hint that Sherlock knew there was something wrong with them.

_Where would you have put him, John? On the floor of your room? Offered him a t-shirt from your cupboard? Possibly fallen asleep holding hands? Fuck._

“No, you’re right. My dad would have torn right into you. He hates posh snobs like you.” He punched Sherlock for good measure, so he knew John had just been offering as a formality.

What they ended up doing was staring at each other again. Dammit.

“Tell me more about your dad,” John suggested as a safe filler. “I mean, how’d he end up with a mathematician for a wife?”

“I’m not sure,” Sherlock admitted after a moment. “They met just after University I think. My father’s an accountant, so I’m sure they met through a colleague or some such. They don’t exactly talk about the details of their romantic attachment and, of course, I’ve never asked.”

“They’ve stayed together, that’s got to be a good sign, right?”

“So have your parents,” Sherlock pointed out.

“Point,” John acknowledged. “But my parents have spilt booze gluing them together.”

“My parents have a sort of symmetry, I think,” Sherlock explained, seeming to put it together as he went, as if he’d never given it a thought before. “My father is a lot like you actually.”

“Me?” John squeaked. “What about me?”

“He’s not as bright as my mother,” John frowned at this, “but they compliment each other. He’s… lovable?”

Even Sherlock looked surprised by this announcement.

“Lovable, huh?” John snickered. “Is that what I am?”

Something on Sherlock’s trousers seemed to fascinate him; he picked at an invisible thread for a long moment, before answering.

“Yes. Everyone loves you.”

John’s head floated off toward the window and bounced around on the ceiling for a bit before he caught it and slapped it back down.

“Everyone?”

Sherlock jumped up, startling John. “Why don’t we play one of those ridicu-”

He was interrupted when the alcohol in his system caught up with him and his top half miscommunicated with his bottom. He ended up sprawled half on the coffee table, half on the floor. John didn’t even try not to laugh.

“Shut up,” Sherlock hissed as he righted himself.

John continued to laugh, face planted into the couch. After, when he’d calmed down, he asked, “What were you saying?”

Sherlock scowled, or tried to, as far as his obviously numb face would allow. “Drinking games. Did you want to teach me?”

“Sherlock, we drank all the booze already,” John pointed out wisely.

“Oh.” He glanced around. “Is there a drinking game that doesn’t require alcohol, then?”

John giggled. “I think you’re thinking of parlor games.”

“Possibly,” he allowed. “Know any of them?”

“I mean, we could do charades, but you can barely stand and I’m not exactly full of excitement to jump up and swing myself around the room.”

“Well, what good are you then?” Sherlock snapped from the floor, where he’d laid down fully.

“How about Truth or Dare?”

Sherlock popped back up, reminiscent of a prairie dog. “Rather pedestrian, isn’t it?”

“Says the man looking _rather_ excited to play.” John smirked.

Sherlock huffed and puffed but in the end jumped up and made for the couch, throwing himself down again. “Ask me then.”

_Such a very bad idea…_

“Truth or Dare?”

“Dare.”

“You would,” John muttered, looking around the room. “I dare you to…” He spotted the violin case and exclaimed, “Play God Save the Queen and do it justice!”

Sherlock’s eyes rose into the stratosphere. “Must I?”

“Not at all, but then I win.” John grinned evilly as Sherlock stood with another huff. He wobbled for a moment, but then swiped the case from the floor. The prep time nearly brought John to bored tears. He shouted for Sherlock to hurry the entire time and nearly got smacked across the face with a bow, but eventually Sherlock got on with it.

Even though the subject matter was in essence a boring, standard affair, the way Sherlock commanded the instrument, given his state, made John sit up and pay close attention. He nearly patted himself on the back for his quick thinking, daring Sherlock to play it correctly and not torture it, as was his usual M.O.

“Ta!” John clapped when Sherlock finished. He gave an uneven bow and placed his violin back in its case. “See? I knew you could play well.”

“Boring,” Sherlock huffed. He flopped back down onto the sofa and pierced John with a glassy stare. “Truth or Dare?”

“Dare.” He was all in. Unless Sherlock dared him to lick the pancreas. That was right out.

“Hmm.” An evil light shone from within Sherlock, and John rethought his previous convictions.

“I’m not licking the pancreas,” John slurred darkly.

Sherlock seemed to find this hilarious. “Not a bad suggestion but no… I was thinking you could sing something.”

John blinked at that. Strangely tame, considering the vastness of Sherlock’s mind. Not to mention unimaginative since John had just given a musically inclined dare.

“All right,” John drawled, wary of unseen traps. “Any requests?”

“Whatever you want.” He settle in for his serenade, arms clutched around his knees.

Without thought, John started singing.

_“Ain't no sunshine when she's gone_

_It's not warm when she's away._

_Ain't no sunshine when she's gone_

_And she's always gone too long_

_Anytime she goes away.”_

John fell into it, eyes closed, no real attempt at technique. Somewhere along the way he started feeling everything he’d worked hard not to these last few weeks. The way his stomach clenched when Sherlock shut him out, how hollow he felt when he heard Sherlock puttering on downstairs as John lay in bed, that ache when he thought of something he’d liked to have shared with Sherlock but was unsure of his welcome. He was so tired, so bloody tired of denying himself, holding his tongue, pulling back when he wanted to run headlong into oblivion. Did John not deserve love? Didn’t Sherlock? Maybe John should try harder to make his desires clear…

John realized he’d been sat on the sofa, long after the song was over, eyes still closed, as he’d been lost in thought. He opened his lids and met Sherlock’s gaze instantly. The man looked devastated. Not moved, crippled. Had John done something wrong? Sherlock looked heartbroken, somehow livid, shocked, and on the verge of tears. John had never seen him look so… emotional. He wanted to soothe, but knew addressing Sherlock’s feelings was the fastest way to drive the man away.

“Truth or Dare?” He softly asked instead, feeling more sober than he had moments before.

“Truth,” Sherlock whispered back. His fingers clenched down on his knees, knuckles white against the black of his trousers.

John met his eyes again and prayed his intent didn’t backfire horribly. “Have you ever been kissed?”

Rapid fire thoughts zipped behind Sherlock’s eyes, John could sense his hesitation before answering, weighing the outcome of honesty.

“Yes,” he finally conceded. John readied himself to go in for the kill, before he was abruptly cut off. “His name was Victor. Still is I imagine. We haven’t spoken in a while but I assume he’s still alive.”

The first thing John registered was Sherlock’s mask, well and truly in place, as he spoke dispassionately. Then, the words. _The words._   

 _Victor…_ John had nearly forgotten the mystery man, the one Sherlock had threatened to find when John had initially turned down his offer to snog that first night. Honestly, John wasn’t sure the man really existed, but to hear him brought up now, of all times…

“You-” John’s pulse raced, and for a moment he actually saw red.

He had to turn away. His hands shook, micro-tremors causing small cramps he couldn’t seem to stop.

_So close, so close. Burned again._

“You fucking coward!” John snatched the crystal tumbler from the table and hurled it against the far wall. Expensive fucking thing didn’t even break, which only egged John further into his anger. “Just once-”

Sherlock shot up, red faced and snarling. “ _I’m_ the coward? _I_ am! You’re the one-”

John stepped into his space. “I what, Sherlock? What did _I_ do?”

Before he could answer, a clear voice rang out behind them. “Am I interrupting something? I can come back.”

“Laila!” John cried in surprise.

She looked just as surprised. Worried too, he supposed.

“Yes, in fact, you are interrupting. If you’d be so kind.” Sherlock waved condescendingly for her to go, and John immediately snatched the wrist attached to the offending hand.

“Don’t talk to her that way,” John growled. Sherlock attempted to pull his arm away but John didn’t let go. He’d have his apology.

“John,” Laila hedged cautiously.

John glanced over at her and felt a bucket of ice water dose him. She looked scared. Of him. Bottle of scotch and one sad excuse and look how easily he’d turned into his father.

John shoved Sherlock’s arm away and marched toward the stairs. Instead of getting out the front door, as he’d intended, John found himself snatched up and shoved toward his bedroom. He tried to argue but one look at Laila’s face had him shuffling meekly upward.

She closed the door behind them and rested against it as if she were exhausted, which she probably was, day she’d had.

“Laila, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”

“I tried to call, you didn’t pick up.”

They stared at each other as the words came to a halt.

John tried again. “We got drunk.” As an explanation, it fell flat. They both knew it.

“I see that,” she admitted dryly. “And what was the occasion?”

John’s face fell, his whole frame really. “It’s his birthday,” his voice cracked pathetically.

Laila closed in on him after that, arms wrapped around his neck, and she graciously let him have a nervous breakdown and hitch brokenly into her hair. He wasn’t crying, not exactly. Just…releasing tension.

“Come sit down," she commanded, steering him toward the bed.

They sat and she continued to cradle him. She didn't try to soothe him with useless platitudes, nor try to pry the truth from him, and John appreciated it. It gave him time to think. Her hand ran over his hair in a soft, rhythmic pattern and he just absorbed the small comfort.

They couldn't go on like this, he knew. It wasn't fair to her, but if he let her go, John would have nothing. The right thing, the healthy thing, to do would be to cut ties with Sherlock. Move back into the dorm and never speak to him again.

That would never happen.

John pulled Laila closer and fell back into the bed with her. She didn't protest, she simply kicked her shoes off, tugged her coat off, and pulled the blanket over their heads.

After a quiet moment, she spoke. “I'll stay for tonight."

“Please," he whispered back. He couldn't even look her in the eyes; she was being too kind.

“You are good, John. I know that. You deserve a lot," she paused to take a deep breath and John braced himself for the worst, “a lot more than a man who won't admit how much you mean to him."

He glanced up. “It's-”

“Jonn," she snapped. “Let me finish." He nodded, contrite, and she went on. “This situation is shit, all right, but I went into it anyway. Cause you're smart and sweet and quite fit honestly." John snorted and Laila let him sneak in a kiss for the compliments. “I just want to say… I went in with both eyes open. The least you could do is the same. Yeah?"

“I know the score. If you think I don't-"

Laila shook her head, practically smashing her face into the pillow. “You don't, John, you really don't. He needs you, we both know that much, but he loves you too, I think. I don't know why you two are fighting it so hard."

There was a cramp in John's stomach that refused to go away. He shoved his fist against it and took a few steadying breaths. Tears burned behind his eyes but he refused to let them fall. He’d be goddamned.

“Five times now I've tried to initiate,” he admitted softly, “and I'll own every one of those pathetic attempts, even the one tonight. I'm sorry for that by the way." Laila smiled, cheeky thing. “But every time I think, maybe there’s something there, like we’re on the same page, he does something-" John remembered the Victor comment again and raged anew, jaw clenched hard in his anger.

“Hey," she pulled him in close, “we'll figure it out."

“We will?"

She snorted softly into his hair. “Yeah. Do you trust me?"

“I... Yeah, I suppose. Why?"

“Let's just worry about it tomorrow, yeah?" She ran a hand back into his hair and hummed some quiet song into John's ear. If he wasn't still incredibly drunk and emotionally exhausted, he probably would have protested the coddling. But it did feel nice, relaxing.

Just before John fell asleep it occurred to him that he hadn't done a bit of studying.

~*~

 

Morning found John like a fifty caliber bullet found an elephant- messy, painful, and, if everyone involved was lucky, with a swift death.

But John was not lucky.

“Fucking hell."

He rolled and smacked the empty space next to his head. Something about that felt wrong, though he couldn't for the life of him figure out why.

Then he heard it. Them rather.

Downstairs Sherlock and Laila were yelling at one another.

“Oh fuck." He jumped up, almost fell, righted himself, and ran for the door. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck."

Right around the time John hit the last step and burst through the kitchen door, they had suddenly switched to what he guessed was Arabic.

He found them, gesturing wildly at each other, Sherlock in the clothes he'd been in the night before, Laila in, god help him, John’s Rugby jersey, and little else...

“John!" Sherlock cried. “Please explain to this woman why her pathetic attempt to goad me is not going to work."

Before John could even utter a word, he stared in mute fascination as Laila went off, and they continued ranting at each other in Arabic. John hadn't even known either of them spoke it.

Not even the unique way the two framed those strange syllables could keep John from the siren's call of pain relief, his brain was too fried to deal with their antics at the moment, so he headed toward the the loo to find some paracetamol. Fix skull, then solve crisis. The heated bickering went on as he dry swallowed four pills. Half-way through Sherlock’s argument he switched back to English.

“-patently fabricated sex-hair. As if I wouldn’t have heard coitus going on practically above my head. This is absurd.”

John watched his own eyebrows inch toward his hairline in the mirror.

“I will not be condescended to by someone who clearly learned Arabic from a Palestinian,” Laila shot back, turning John’s bewildered shock up several notches.

“Oh, please, spare me your mother's politics, and stick to the topic at hand. Your attempt has failed. Run along now, I’m sure John could do with some more feminine coddling, which seems to be more your forte.”

“I wouldn’t need to coddle him if you treated him better.”

“He’s a grown man, he can handle himself.”

“So you’ll continue to break him and I’ll just pick up the pieces, shall I?”

John flinched at that. It was enough. He had to stop the progression before she blurted out something he couldn’t recall from her lips.

“I do nothing of the kind. If my actions had any affect on John Watson, I would know.”

John froze in the doorway. Laila glanced at him, but Sherlock couldn’t see. Her look said, ‘See? He has no idea what he’s doing.’

“John’s patience isn’t limitless,” Laila went on. “Eventually he’ll grown tired of your hesitancy and he’ll be all mine.”

Sherlock didn’t seem to like that one bit. He crowded right up into her face and snarled something in Arabic. Laila’s answering smile was angelic. It seemed she’d gotten exactly what she’d wanted. John wished her future courtroom opponents all the luck in the world.  

“And here I thought I’d missed the party.”

Everyone started at the dry announcement. John whipped around to find Mycroft standing casually behind him, resting against that absurd umbrella.

“Not now, Mycroft,” Sherlock growled, not looking away from Laila for a second. Perhaps he thought she was the greater threat.

“I would have thought you’d be happy to see me.” He brushed past John with a whisper of wool on silk. “You’ve been awaiting this day for years after all. All the paperwork is accounted for.” He slapped a briefcase down onto the table. Sherlock glanced at it but his attention was quickly back on John’s girlfriend.

“I said not now,” Sherlock reiterated.

Mycroft gave a great put upon sigh. John stepped forward when Mycroft, as if he dealt with just this scenario all the time, casually took Laila by the shoulders and steered her toward John. Sherlock looked incensed, Laila looked confused, and John accepted her from Mycroft with a frown. Especially when he produced another mysteriously materialized business card and placed it in her hand with a whisper. She glanced up, shocked but not seemingly offended. John didn’t know what to think.

“Now, let’s conclude the business of the day, shall we?”

“My birthday was yesterday,” Sherlock pointed out with a curled lip.

“Yes, and I was in Dubai. You’ll have to excuse the delay.” He snapped the briefcase open and pulled out a packet of paperwork. “If you wouldn’t mind,” he drawled with a glance at John.

John, clearly dismissed, walked Laila toward the stairs so she could get dressed. He followed behind, for inappropriately obvious reasons, as she made her way back to the bedroom.

She rounded on John as soon as they entered the room. “How perfect was that?”

“Perfect? What was perfect about it?” John felt like he’d picked up by a hurricane, flung to and fro, and set back down on his arse.

“Sherlock! He was so…so…angry! It was lovely! Oh, John, it’s just too perfect. I can’t believe he fell into that so easily.”

“Sex-hair?” John cautiously asked. She had indeed done something to the back of her head.

She smirked and ran a hand through it, puffing it up a bit. “You like?” She queried with a chuckle.

“Yeah,” he drawled, closing in, charmed despite himself, “though it could have been achieved without the product.” He nibbled her ear.

“Quit it,” she breathlessly whispered, contrarily tilting her head for better access. “You’re going to undo all the hard work I just did.”

John growled in frustration. “Are you ever going to let me in on your devious plan? And since when do you speak Arabic?”

She eyed him and John felt the sneaking suspicion he should already know this answer. “My mother is from Lebanon…”

“And you told me that,” he pinched the bridge of his nose, “yeah. I remember now. Your dad's family is from… Greece, right? You said on our first date.”

“Right.” She pursed her lips at him. “You know, it’s a good thing I’m the best girlfriend on the planet-”

“You are.”

“Because you’re a shit boyfriend.”

“I am. Sorry.”

She brightened. “Lucky for you I’m willing to put that aside to help you.”

“Help me do what?”

“Get Sherlock, silly!” She tore the jersey over her head and paraded around the room semi-nude, picking up her previously discarded articles of clothing. It was a testament to her allure that he didn’t immediately scoff at her statement.

“Wait, what?” He handed over her earrings when she reached for them. “Is that what you were doing?”

“Obviously.” She tucked them back into her ears and grinned at him.  “Working like a charm so far.”

John had to argue that point. “How do you figure that? According to him, he saw right through the sex-hair thing?” He gestured to the now messy bun sat atop her head.

“Yes, he did, but that wasn’t the point. The point is, he reacted to it. He cares.” She waited for a reaction from John, which she didn’t receive. “Jesus. He cares that I’m in the way. That he thinks I’m actively trying to steal you away. If there was nothing to take he wouldn’t have even put up a fight. Are you really not getting this?”

He blinked. “It’s just…it doesn’t make any sense. Why deny there being a thing to begin with? He has to know what I want. If he even remotely cared, why would he turn me down?”

“I’ve said it before, John.” She sat next to him on the bed and took his hand. “He’s scared. He doesn’t have the first clue how to do relationships, and I think he’s fighting it like a baby fights sleep.”

The whole time she talked, John just shook his head obstinately. “I can’t think that way. It’s too dangerous. If you’re wrong it’ll wreck what little bit of friendship we do have.”

Her hand squeezed around his. “Do you want to know what he said to me downstairs?” She asked quietly. John looked up and met her eyes, not sure if he did want to know. She answered anyway. “‘He’s mine.’ That’s what he said to me just before the other bloke showed up. Still not sure how he feels?”

Blood pooled low in John’s stomach, ran in a loud rush in his ears. Possessive tendencies perhaps… John was his only friend afterall. He ran his fingertips hard over his breastbone and tried to keep the rising hope down.

“John,” Laila called out, shaking him. “You still in there?”

“Huh?” He glanced up absently, not quite ready to hear more.

“I asked you about the guy Sherlock’s with now. What does he do?”

“Mycroft?” John shook his head to clear it, confused by the sudden topic change. “He’s Sherlock’s brother. Works in the Government.”

“Hmm.” She ran a finger over her lips absently. “Doing what?”

He frowned. “I’m not sure,” he hedged. “Why?”

“I think he offered me a job earlier. Said the jersey was a nice touch,” she admitted with chuckle. “Anyway, one problem at a time. Let’s get you and Sherlock squared away first.”

Before he could protest, she was scooping her coat off the floor and heading for the door.

He followed behind, and tried his damndest not to laugh at the twin glares Sherlock and Laila gave each other as she passed into the sitting room to grab her purse. When they reached the top of the stairs, Laila stopped him with a hand to his chest.

Overly loud, she announced, “Don’t forget, John, Gaucho, tonight at eight. See you, love.” With an even louder, smacking kiss and a conspiratorial wink, she was off.

“Pathetic,” John heard from the sitting room. When he rounded the corner, Sherlock was sneering up at him. So much for the possessive declarations.

“So,” John threw himself down on the sofa, “what’s the paperwork for?”

Sherlock and Mycroft spoke over top one another to answer.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Sherlock’s freedom.”

John rolled his eyes and popped back up from the sofa. Fine, let them both be cryptic and dismissive. John was just getting his appetite back and the kitchen called.

“As I was saying,” Mycroft went on, “these are contingent upon your continued sobriety.”

“Obviously,” Sherlock answered, sounding bored.

“The tests stop but don’t think I won’t be dropping in from time to time to check on you.” John heard the snap of the briefcase and the sound of Mycroft standing. “The stunt with the cough syrup almost cost you another six months, keep that in mind. If John weren’t there, I would have sent you to Yorkshire without hesitation.”

John’s hand slowed on it’s way toward the milk. Sending Sherlock into the country would be detrimental to his sobriety. John had only known Sherlock for three months and he knew that. Sherlock needed the city to occupy him, needed the cases and his experiments.

“Can’t you leave Lestrade be? You’re going to see him prematurely grey,” Sherlock snapped.

“Oh yes, it’s me who’s the problem,” Mycroft snapped back, more petulant than John had seen from the man yet. John could see the resemblance now. Apparently upset that Sherlock had ruffled his feathers, Mycroft tugged his jacket down and set his shoulders back. “Mummy and Father send their regards from Spain.”

John was just setting down with his bowl of cereal when he heard a soft, “Did you tell them about the cough medicine incident?”

Mycroft sighed. “No, Sherlock, I didn’t. No need to thank me. Just keep yourself alive please. I’m sure they would appreciate you seeing your nineteenth birthday.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the sitting room. John sat absolutely still, spoon posed in front of his mouth, milk dripping off the end, just blinking at the wall.

“Nineteen...next year?” John thought aloud. “Meaning eighteen this year… Meaning until yesterday you were seventeen?”

“Yes, John,” Mycroft answered. “That is generally how counting backwards works. If you’ll both excuse me.”

He quit the flat but John couldn’t be bothered to give a farewell.

It all made sense now. Why Mrs. Hudson had brought up the bottle of scotch, why Mycroft was suddenly giving Sherlock his freedom. Because he was _legal_ now. Jesus Christ. John had sucked off a seventeen year old.

He got up and dumped his still mostly full bowl into the sink.

“John,” Sherlock hesitantly called out, “does it really make a difference?”

John held up a hand as he walked by, not in the mood to explain. He was going back to bed and he wasn’t getting up until his date with Laila.

 

~*~

 

“You’re absolutely sure this is going to work?” John asked as they sat down.

Laila gave him a look as she sat. “No, but if it doesn’t dinner’s on me.”

He waved that away. It wasn’t Laila’s responsibility, to handle Sherlock or dinner. The waiter swooped in and took their drink orders, leaving John feeling out of his depth when Laila suggested a bottle; the waiter looked at him and John had to shrug his agreement. As if he knew a Zinfandel from a hole in the ground.

The restaurant was entirely out of his price range, and so far removed from his usual fare, he might as well be having tea in Buckingham. But he went along with the scheme because she swore she could get Sherlock to confess. Or, barring that, at least prove to John that there was more to Sherlock’s feelings than the platonic facade he’d created. John had spent all day, precious time that should have been spent studying for the new term, coming to terms with his love for Sherlock. Being eighteen didn’t make any difference really in the long run. He was still light years ahead of John in terms of intelligence, more worldly, still just as attractive and desirable. The innocence he sometimes glimpsed from Sherlock only added to John’s affection. It called out to something in John that wanted to protect, to shield him from the harshness of the world, from those who didn’t understand him.

John twisted the stem of his wine glass and wondered how the night would play out. Would Sherlock even show up? If he did, would he make a scene? It would appeal to his dramatic nature, but he must also know John wouldn’t appreciate being made a spectacle of, surely.

“Jesus Christ and all his disciples,” Laila mock-whispered, “I can’t make this shit up.” John started to turn but she hissed,” Don’t look. He’s coming over. Just, uh,” she blinked, looking pensive and perhaps a tad worried, “just act natural.”

“Wha-”

“Oh, hello, John. Laila. Didn’t expect to see you here-”

Whatever else Sherlock blathered about was tuned out as John registered the man at his side through a film of red. Why did god hate John so? That was the only explanation for the foolishness we was currently witnessing.

Sherlock had a date.

“Who’s that?” John blurted out, just managing not to point angrily in the bloke’s face.

The bloke in question gave a nervous laugh and held his hand out. “Victor. Victor Trevor.”

He looked the bastard over, noting the lack of muscle. _I could take him_ , John thought, _if I had to._ He was handsome, in an obvious, posh sort-of-way. His hair was blond, tamed with enough product to make Sherlock jealous, with bright blue eyes that, despite their guileless shine, John immediately despised. Beside each other, Sherlock and Victor looked like light and dark versions of each other. It was enough to make one sick.

John shook his hand(his father had raised him with a modicum of manners) but his murderous glare was pointed directly at Sherlock.

“Well, I won’t keep you, just thought we’d stop and say hello.” Sherlock smiled serenely.

“No, please,” Laila kicked out a chair, “stay. Have dinner with us.”

“No, I don’t-” John tried, he really did.

“Oh, all right.” Sherlock flopped down into the chair, happy as a clam. Victor followed after, though less thrilled. He looked like a model turned the wrong way round on the catwalk, what with his chiseled jaw and _adorable_ pout.

John thought perhaps he could casually knock the candle on their table out of its tiny crystal bowl and into Victor’s lap.  

“I ordered a bottle of the 2008 El Gran Enemigo Petit Verdot, if you’d like to share,” Laila offered. She was a ridiculously good actress. One would think she actually welcomed them there. John supposed, in a way, she did; if only to goad Sherlock into acting out.

John thought Sherlock had come much more prepared to the dinner, if antagonising was his goal.

He raised an eyebrow at Laila’s offer. “I suppose. Your taste is wasted on John, I’m afraid. He’s more of a Guinness man.”

“Nothing wrong with a classic,” she responded. “There’s something to be said for a good, old fashioned, _reliable_ drink. Wouldn’t you say, John?”

John looked away from Victor’s hands. “Hmm?”

“Nothing, dear. Did you decide on an appetizer?” She twirled a strand of hair around her finger innocently and smiled wide.

“He’ll have the provoleta.”

John glanced back up from staring at Victor’s hands again to frown at Sherlock. “I’ll order for myself, thank you.”

He received a ‘suit yourself’ shrug. Incensed, John snatched the menu off the table and searched through the starters. He ignored Victor and Sherlock as they mumbled together over sharing a plate of sausages, and found, to his dismay, that the provoleta was indeed the only thing that looked at all appealing. Damn the man.

When the waiter came back to take their orders, drop off the wine, and fill Sherlock and Victor’s water glasses, John begrudgingly ordered the provoleta, but added a salad just to prove Sherlock didn’t know everything. The bastard was still sitting smug after John ordered, which pissed him off to no end.

“Seb says hi,” Victor informed Sherlock after tapping his mobile.

Sherlock tensed infinitesimally. John wondered immediately what it meant. Who the hell was Seb?

“Why?” Sherlock drawled, feigning nonchalance.

“I told him you called. Says you haven’t called him in months,” Victor replied.

John’s pulse jumped. He could tell, just by the way Sherlock froze, the way he paled, Seb was the dealer. Seb was _responsible_. John started when Laila placed a hand to his knee and squeezed.

“So, _Victor_ ,” Laila chirped cheerfully with a smile, “what are you studying?”

He glanced up with an answering smile. The man was clearly unaware of the tension at the table his little comment had caused.  John got a smug kick out of that. Knowing Sherlock better than Victor went a long way towards calming his nerves. He leaned casually back in his seat and threw an arm around Laila’s chair, earning him a knowing glance from Laila.

“Ah, business,” Victor answered. “My family is nothing but filthy barristers and JP’s, which I abhor, but we’ve the money to throw towards investments so I thought, what the hell, why not get a business degree and see what sticks.”

John and Laila shared a look, and, upon checking, John noted even Sherlock seemed privately amused.

“How about you two?” Victor congenially asked, sipping his wine like a world class ponce.

Laila jumped at the chance to answer. “John has selflessly decided to dedicate his life to helping others, my darling future doctor has,” she leaned in to sickeningly rub noses with him, “and I was committed to becoming a filthy barrister, but recently I’ve been thinking of switching careers, so who knows.”

Victor, instead of looking sheepish, slid a dark look at Sherlock, as if it were all his fault for not warning him beforehand. ‘Of course you set me up for that’, the look said. John fumed at the idea that he knew Sherlock well enough to be sharing looks.

“You’re an artist as well,” John announced, with what he hoped was a friendly smile toward Victor.

“Hmm?” The man hummed absently. He glanced over and John gestured toward his ink stained fingernails. “Oh, I don’t, I mean not professionally.”

“Don‘t be modest, Victor,” Sherlock drawled silkily, singeing John’s nerves with the familiarity, “your etchings are quite lovely.”  

Laila inhaled her wine the wrong way, and John had to pound on her back for a moment, until she coughed up the excess liquid.

“Oh, look, our starters are here,” she cried as the waiter arrived.

As the plates were set down, Laila quickly motioned to her face and then to John’s, mouthing something he didn’t quite catch. He frowned to say he didn’t understand, so she quickly mouthed ‘This is you’ and gave an approximation of John’s countenance. Yep. Apparently he looked crazy. He tried to relax his facial muscles but the best he could do was a dopey, non-committal smile.

“Good enough,” she muttered and dug into her steak tartare.

John turned to his salad, if a bit zealously, and found it to be too busy; the flavours fairly smacking him across the face. Who put mint in a salad?

Sherlock made a noise, a self-satisfied noise in John’s opinion, but when John looked up with a glare, Sherlock was glancing - flirtatiously - at Victor. It was possible John bent the handle of his fork with his thumb.

“How’re your chicken and sage? Mind if I try one?” Sherlock asked softly, as if unsure of his welcome. John could just puke at the falsely coy behaviour.

“Only if I can have one of your pork and honey’s,” Victor replied.

Sherlock didn’t seem to expect that, though it seemed an obviously fair trade. Something about it bothered John, beyond what he already felt, and he realized what it was when Sherlock blinked in confusion.

John never would have taken food from Sherlock’s plate, especially something that he would have eaten. The whole situation was hateful; not only reeking of Lady and the Tramp, but making John feel like something was inherently wrong in the universe.

“I’m going to fucking sick all over the table, I swe- Ow!” John rubbed his floating rib where Laila had punched it. He hadn’t even spoken loud enough to be overheard, he hadn’t thought at least.

“John,” she leaned in lovingly, “didn’t you say you saw a flat for rent near the cafe? Did you get the number?”

Oh, that was low...and deliciously cruel.

John loved it.

“Yeah, but I haven’t called yet. It looks small but I don’t mind. It could be… cozy.” He ran the back of his finger up the side of her neck.

Sherlock made no attempt at feigning nonchalance. He stared John down, his mask in place, but his zipping eyes searching John for the truth. He was worried. _Good_.  Let Sherlock find the lie, let him figure it out. Then maybe he’d see how ridiculous this whole farce was, pinning Victor in the middle especially (not that John wouldn’t happily smash his perfect aquiline innocent nose given half the chance).

“It would look bad on a housing application,” Sherlock mumbled. “Switching locations three times in one year.”

John couldn’t help but snort. Laila nudged him with her knee, he knudged back.

“I don‘t mind. I’m sure if we decided to move in, we wouldn’t leave until after Uni.”

Sherlock stared John down. John could almost feel Victor’s stare but he couldn’t care less.

“Sherlock, a word,” Victor announced, slapping his napkin down onto the table. He stood and walked away, sure Sherlock would follow.

Sherlock’s face did something almost feral, clearly not happy with the summons, but he broke eye contact to follow, stealing one more sausage before he walked away.

“Go,” Laila shoved at John to follow them.

He chuckled. “We already know what he’s going to say. Looks like the bloke has some spine after all.”

“Not the point. I wanna know what it is. If you make me go I’m not going to tell you,” she threatened.

John bristled. He hated being backed into a corner, but she was right, he’d burst with curiosity if he didn’t know what they were talking about.

With a Sherlockian growl, John rushed after them, slowing as he approached the darkened hall where they stood. John stopped at the corner, round the bend from the loos. There was a convenient alcove tucked into the outside wall and John made use of it, snuggling behind a potted plant. Whether consciously or not, the two men had stopped close enough to the main lobby for John to just make out their conversation.

“No, Sherlock, I’m done. This is absurd.”

“Just hear me out-”

“No! You obviously couldn’t care less about seeing me, you just wanted a pawn. It’s pathetic, that’s what it is. I can’t believe I actually thought you wanted to see me. Months with no word and suddenly, out of the blue, you decide to call? I’m an idiot.”

“Victor,” Sherlock’s voice crooned with an almost believable softness, “please. I did want to see you. I feel badly for how things ended.”

Victor gave a snort. “What _things_? You practically ran screaming when I kissed you.”

“I-” Sherlock seemed to hesitate and John couldn’t help but feel a bit smug at this information. Not only had Sherlock not run screaming from John, he’d practically begged to be kissed that night. _It was the drugs_ , John’s oh so helpful inner monologue reminded him.

Victor went on, “Don’t deny it. I won’t pretend to get it, why him and not me, but I’m telling you now, I’m done being used. Don’t call me again.”

“Victor! Wait!” Sherlock cried out. John ducked further behind the pedestal when Victor stopped inches from his location. His heart pounded like mad as the man waited reluctantly for Sherlock to finish. “I’ll come with you, to your father’s estate. I won’t deduce a thing, I swear. I know you were worried, but-”

“Dammit, Sherlock,” Victor sighed. “It’s too late now. And, for your information, I couldn’t care less what you deduce about my father.”

“Uh huh,” Sherlock drawled, and John could picture the exact look on his flatmate’s face. He had to stifle his laughter.

“Piss off, Sherlock.” Without glancing in John’s direction Victor walked away.

John panicked for a moment, not sure if Sherlock would follow or not. Surely he would know John had followed if he walked directly back to the table to find John missing.

It turned out he didn’t need to worry. Sherlock must have turned back the opposite direction, through the kitchens, to make his escape. Something about that deflated John’s earlier exuberance at their little game. It was fun as long as he was winning. Now he just felt empty.

Carefully, John ducked out of his hiding hole and leant around the corner to verify Sherlock had left. Sure enough, the hall was empty.

He trudged back to the table, hands in his pockets, probably looking strikingly similar to Charlie Brown.

“What, John? What is it?” Laila stood and cradled his jaw in her tiny palm.

John’s breath hitched softly and he nuzzled into the comfort. He closed his eyes and just breathed for a moment. He was sure people were probably watching but he didn’t care.

“I can’t keep doing this,” he finally admitted. “It’s exhausting.”

“Here, come sit back down.” She pulled him down into his chair and pushed their plates out of the way so she could cradle his hand in hers, rubbing soothing circles into his palm and wrist.

“He left.” John glanced at the plate of sausages. “Suppose we’ll have to pay for that,” he noted absently.

“I’ll take care of it.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” John stated angrily. “It was just like him, coming here, wrecking everything and then just leaving without thought. He shouldn’t do things like that. It’s…” He trailed off, out of steam already. A sigh escaped and John allowed himself to be pulled forward to lean his head against Laila’s shoulder. “You’re a really great girlfriend.”

“I know.” He could hear the smile in her statement. She ran a hand through his hair and hummed casually in thought. “So what did you think?”

“About tonight? I think I want to move to Canada and start over as a sheep herder.”

“I don’t think they have sheep in Canada,” Laila responded seriously.

“I’m sure they do. It’s a big place.”

“No, I’m sure they do too, it’s just I wouldn’t think wool would be their biggest export. Why not move to the highlands if you’re going to raise sheep?”

“No good, I’ve been to Scotland. It’s shit.”

Laila snorted into his hair. Eventually she pulled him away from her with a hand to the back of his neck.

“Seriously, though. Do you see it now? How bloody desperate he is?”

John mashed his lips together before responding. “What I see is he doesn’t want me, he just doesn’t want _you_ to have me.”

An elegant eyebrow was raised, sceptical and a bit impatient.

“All right,” John went on, “maybe he’s being a bit overly… possessive, but you can’t think he’d ever really follow through with… whatever it is that…” He couldn’t even finish the thought before his stomach clenched in pain.

“John,” Laila softly drawled, “he crashed our date with a handsome bloke who clearly had no idea why he’d been called to action, and then ran out the back to avoid confrontation after it blew up in his face.” She looked away and took a deep breath, but the continued. “I know you like to think of him as this amazing, mysterious figure. A sort of avenging angel, all mighty and impervious, but… he’s still just a kid. Underneath all that blase attitude, he just wants you to like him. And you do! The lack of understanding between you two is unbelievably absurd.”

“That might be true,” John conceded, “but it doesn’t translate to wanting a relationship with me. He’s stated in no uncertain terms that he doesn’t do relationships. What am I supposed to do with that?”

“Normally I wouldn’t advocate this, but… you ignore it.” She dropped her hands into her lap in frustration. “He’s just talking shit. He’s scared, John. Everytime he fucks up and you get mad he loses a little bit more confidence. I can tell. I mean, the cough medicine incident, c’mon.”

John snorted. “All right. I’ll… think about this. Do you want to flag the waiter? I’ve lost my appetite.”

She stared him down for a long second, probably deciding on whether she’d allow the subject change or not, but eventually she waved at the waiter. They fought over splitting the check but, once John caught a glance at the total, he bowed out. They both knew her job at the cafe was just a formality; her family was filthy rich.

They walked hand and hand back to Laila’s dorm. He waved a hello to Gail, kissed Laila, with a promise to call tomorrow, and walked slowly back to Baker Street. He’d promised to think about everything Lalia had brought up during dinner, but he broke that promise, only thinking about putting one foot in front of the other until he hit his bed.

 

~*~

 

John hadn’t even thought to worry about Sherlock until the next morning, when he discovered Sherlock hadn’t come home at all. The flat was still empty, nothing in his room had been touched, no food or drink prepared (not that that was unusual). Perhaps he had caught back up with Victor and they were making up? The thought didn’t set right, for obvious reasons, but not just those. Victor had seemed adamant, justifiably angry at Sherlock, and though he could be quite persuasive, John didn’t think Sherlock would stoop to that after his plan had backfired. So where was he? If Sherlock was in any sort of danger, John would never forgive himself.

He waited until nearly noon before reluctantly dialing Mycroft.

“What happened?" The man answered immediately, no greeting.

John didn't bother asking how he knew something was wrong. “I'm not sure if we should worry just yet, but he didn't come home last night-"

A sigh traveled down the line. “I vetted you so things like this wouldn’t happen, John.”

He nearly got angry at that but guilt stayed his tongue. “Just find him, please.”

“There are only so many places he would be. I’ll get back to you.”

Before Mycroft could hang up John shouted, “Wait! He said he has a bolthole in Camden, a place you don’t know about. It’s where he went for Christmas. I don’t know if he’d go there now that I know about it but…”

Silence hung for a few seconds. “Thank you. When I find him, you’ll know.”

Mycroft hung up and John stared at the phone. If Sherlock’s brother was worried, John was worried. He’d called as a precaution - maybe Mycroft had already known Sherlock’s whereabouts and could settle John’s panic - but now, now John was beside himself.

He quickly dialed Laila and begged her to come over. “I don’t know what Mycroft will find but-”

“I’ll be right there,” she announced and John was hung up on for the second time.

John let the sofa catch him as his terror weakened his knees. Guilt sat heavily in his stomach as he waited for Laila to arrive.  He knew it was a possibility, Sherlock going back on his word like this, and John wanted to get angry, if he were a complete bastard he could spin it as all Sherlock's fault, but he knew they'd both had a hand in it. He’d agreed to Laila’s farcical dinner idea, he’d egged on the lie that he might move out. Christ, what had he been thinking?

All he could see was the image of Sherlock, unconscious in an alley or a abandoned building, with a needle buried in his arm, his heart rate shooting up to dangerous levels with no one there to help him.

As soon as Laila hit the doorway, John snapped to attention. He stood, resolute, and announced, “I'm done playing games. No more manipulation."

She held up her hands in surrender. “I'm sorry, really, I am. I didn't know he would take off."

John's anger deflated and he fell back onto the sofa with a groan. Laila walked over and sat next to him, gingerly taking his hand.

“If it makes you feel any better, I've already talked to Daniel and he's spread the word not to sell to Sherlock."

John glanced over in shock. “You did?"

She nodded. “Just after I left the flat yesterday. I was fairly sure he would react favourably but just in case, I had Daniel get in touch with some of his estate contacts. He shouldn’t be able to find anything harder than paracetamol in the greater london area.”

John groaned. “Or cough syrup.”

Laila rubbed circles onto his back as he leaned heavily over his knees but didn’t comment on that.

“Do you see?” He groaned into his jeans. “Do you see now how we are together? This is rubbish. I’m going to have a bloody heart attack before I hit twenty-five.” At the very least go prematurely grey.

“You won’t. He’ll have you running every day for the next fifty years, until your bones are too brittle to go on.”

John stared at the carpet until his sight swam. _I want that, oh god, I want that…_

“Tell me again about the Art majors with the paper mache wizard in the pool.”

John chuckled despite himself and rubbed at his nose with his sleeve. “I know what you’re doing.”

“So what?” She responded. “Tell me anyway.”

He sat back and leaned until their shoulder met. “Don’t think I remember all of that one.”

“Maybe you should start writing them down. Weren’t you a creative writing major at one point? What good are you?”

He stared off at the mantle across the room and thought, _Why not?_

 

~*~

 

By the time Sherlock returned it was after sundown. A car pulled up outside and yelling could be heard through the window.

“Don’t touch me, I’ll break your bloody arm, I swear. Get off!”

John ran to the window and just managed to catch Mycroft hustling Sherlock through the front door. He could hear Mycroft consoling Mrs. Hudson in the entryway, and then the thump of Sherlock running up the stairs.

John took a few hesitant steps forward to greet him but he thought better of it when Sherlock sent a betrayed look over his shoulder on his way to his bedroom. The door slammed hard enough to rattle the glass bottles on the counter in the loo.

“Shit,” John muttered.

Mycroft rounded the corner after Sherlock but John called out, “Unless you want to kick the door down, I suggest you leave him be.”

Mycroft actually seemed to weigh the pros and cons of John’s suggestion, though John was hard pressed to envision Mycroft getting his leg up high enough to kick at the door at all, but eventually returned to the sitting room.

“Is he… Did he?” John whispered, hands tucked behind his back so Mycroft wouldn’t see the tremble.

Mycroft gave a slight shake of his head, to John’s great relief, without looking, still preoccupied with staring down the hall. “No,” he answered back softly, only just glancing at John. “You were right though, we did find him in Camden. Thank you again.”

“Don’t thank me just yet,” John mumbled darkly, “you might have to hide my body later tonight.”

“Sherlock is more than capable of hiding your body, John, should he feel the need. Just don’t fall asleep here anytime soon, you should be fine.”

“Oh, ta very much for that.” He scowled at Sherlock’s brother but the tit couldn’t be bothered to even look.

“Will you talk to him?” Mycroft asked instead.

The answer to that was beyond John at the moment. “I don’t know if he’d let me even try right now. Maybe tomorrow after he’s cooled down.”

Mycroft finally looked over and locked eyes with John. That laser focus was possibly the only thing the brothers shared.

“You need to keep an eye on him at the very least. I’ve got business in New York to attend to this week, I can’t follow his every move.”

John blinked. “Right. Yes, of course. I will.”

“Good.” With a glance at Laila and a shake of his umbrella, Mycroft was gone.

John should have thanked him but it was too late, unless he wanted to yell out the bloody window.

Before John could even blink, Laila was up off the sofa and striding down the hall. He called after, ready to yank her back if necessary, but she held up a hand, stern and serious, as she stopped outside Sherlock’s door. John waited, nervous and unsure.

She spoke softly, in that rhythmic Arabic she knew damn well John couldn’t understand. What the hell was she up to now? He moved forward again but she scowled and shook her head once, warning him away, as she waited for an answer from the other side.

It was slow in coming, John could barely hear it, but it came, audible enough to give John a chill at its deep resonance. Laila didn’t seem satisfied,  seemed to demand more or possibly clarification. Sherlock’s answering hiss was given a nod of approval. Laila marched back to John, took his hand and lead him towards his coat and shoes.

“Whoa, hold on,” he ripped his hand away from her, “what the hell is going on?”

“We’re going out. Adam Welling is hosting a party at The Serpent’s Coil and we’re going.”

John stared at her, aghast. “Are you ill? Why would I-”

“We’re going and so is Sherlock,” she interrupted, handing him his shoes like she was his mum.

“Absolutely not! The last time I went along with a scheme of yours he disappeared for a full day. No, I’m staying here and keeping an eye on him, like Mycroft said.”

“Mycroft would approve, I can assure you,” Laila tried to convince him, shaking his shoes impatiently.

“You can’t possibly know that. He just said-”

“John!” She snapped. “Trust me. One last time. Please.”

Her eyes were pleading, as if this were their last chance. Last chance at _what,_ John had no idea, but god help him if he didn’t just want to let her lead one last time anyway. It was stupid, he knew, but wasn’t it just the way of things? Everyone else knew better, didn’t they? And apparently she had Mycroft’s invisible blessing. Sherlock’s too, if his rumbling Arabic was to be believed.

He went, with a glare and a begrudging growl, he went. God help her if this backfired as well.

 

~*~

 

“He’s here,” Laila whispered in his ear, clearly relieved. “He sat down at the bar.”

John didn’t turn to look. “Is he drinking?” Dread coursed through his veins. Technically he couldn’t stop Sherlock from drinking if he chose, he could only stop him if he became belligerent.

“No, looks like a Coke.”

“Thank god for that.” John had opted for the same, knowing he’d need a clear head for the night. Too bad no one else in the pub felt the same, since it was the last night before the spring term started. One last hurrah before going back to the grind.

Mike was there, red faced and swaying with some bird with a long ponytail and a hideous jumper. Mary was there, damn her, with David of course, but David seemed more inclined to guzzle pints and pretend to throw darts at first years than pay her any mind.

“All right,” Laila leaned in to mutter conspiratorially, “how do you want to do this?”

John looked at her. “Why does everyone assume I’m in on the plan? Is it something about my face? You all think I’m a lot smarter than I _actually_ am.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Just go with it then.”

And then she started to go off. John turned fully in his seat, wide-eyed and actually quite impressed at the drama of it all. It was certainly drawing attention. He glanced over to see if Sherlock was watching, because obviously that was the point, to find the very last thing he expected.

A black-clad woman of a similar age to John, had her blood red nails trailing down Sherlock’s arm. They clearly knew each other, her smile said as much, and his body language didn’t read as uncomfortable. This must be the infamous Molly, keeper of Sherlock’s precious body parts. What the hell was John supposed to do about that? No one would say no to a woman like that, and she was clearly fishing. Since John had no idea if Sherlock even liked women, his hackles were raised. John had no right to step in, but how could he stand by and let that harpy-

“Are you even paying attention to me?” Laila demanded.

He looked back at her, ready to make his excuses and end the game right then and there, but Mike bounded over with his dance partner, pissed as a newt, and unaware of the tension surrounding the couple.

“John! Hey, next round’s on me, mate. You don’t look near caught up.”

“No, Mike, I’m not-”

“Have you met Molly? She’s my lab partner in anatomy.”

The girl held out her hand, meek but pink from exertion and drink. “Molly Hooper, hello.”

“Molly,” John drawled in confusion. He took her hand but glanced up at the viper at the bar, now laughing full throated at something Sherlock had said, and back at the nondescript woman in front of him. “Molly Hooper who has the keys to the forensics lab?”

She blinked and looked at Mike with a nervous giggle and tug on her hair. “Yeah…”

“Than who the bloody hell is that?!” John exclaimed and pointed at the mystery woman.

Mike and Molly both turned to look at Sherlock, back at each other, and then back at John. Both shrugged.

John was ready to tear his hair out when Laila pulled him roughly by his shirt front and snarled, “That’s Irene Adler and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll shut up and let me dump you. Ready?” Without any more warning than that she open palm slapped him across the face. “I knew it! You bastard! I can’t believe I fell for your lies! I never want to see you again, John Watson!”

“Christ, was that necessary?” John rubbed at his cheek. “Wait, are we actually breaking up?”

She looked ready to throttle him and he had no idea if it was still an act or not. “I never want to see you again, John,” she repeated with a not-so-subtle head tilt toward Sherlock.

“All right,” John begrudgingly agreed.

Everyone, including Mike and Molly had eyes on him, except apparently the one person who John had gotten publicly slapped for, the bastard. Sherlock was still facing away, leaned in close with Irene to hear her over the crowd. God dammit, he’d just been dumped by the hottest girl he’d ever dated and the plan hadn’t even worked.

“That’s it, I’m done. Toss it, toss everything.” John stomped away, ignoring Mike’s call to return. Even if Laila was taking the piss about their breaking up, it had proven that Sherlock couldn’t care less what John did. He was done with all of it, the whole idea of Sherlock as more than just a flatmate. Hell, they were barely friends at this point. He’d certainly never mentioned Irene before…

“John,” a horrifically familiar voice called out, stopping him in his tracts, though he wanted nothing more than to curl up and die outside somewhere, away from prying eyes.

“What?” He growled without looking.

“Aw, don’t be like that. I still care for you. I just wanted to make sure you’re all right.”

John turned toward Mary, feeling only a slight twinge of remorse for being rude. “I take it you saw that?”

She made a face, a mix between a grimace and the turning down of her lips that said she was trying not to laugh. Now he didn’t feel guilty at all for being rude. He was fully ready to walk away when David sidled up to Mary, throwing an arm over her shoulders.

“Hey, John,” David slurred, “is it true what Mary said? That you and that Holmes bloke are shagging?”

John’s fingers curled and his vision went red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *is wearing a 'Ask me about Laila' t-shirt* *hopes someone asks me about Laila*  
> The next chapter is coming along, slowly but surely. It'll be the last full chapter for sure. I still haven't decided if I have an epilogue in me or not. We shall see.


	6. We're in this together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock follows the 'happy' couple to the pub, knowing fair well a showdown is going to happen. To the victor goes the spoils and Sherlock is prepared to win at all costs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it folks. The end of the road eight months in the making. Sorry it's taken this long to complete. When I uploaded chapter one I sincerely thought it was nearly finished. My brain does what it wants. *shrugs*  
> Many thousands of thanks to my girls, [pringlesaremydivision](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pringlesaremydivision) and [superblue](http://archiveofourown.org/users/superblue/pseuds/superblue) for their continued support throughout this long process. I'd've given up if not for their 'OMG THIS!'s and 'OH NO HE DIDN'T's. You guys are amazeballs. <3  
> This work is gifted to my small bab [Cupidsbowkisses](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cupidsbowkisses), who I finally remembered to ACTUALLY gift to, because she loves unilock and continues to love my stories. *drops 70+k word fic on your stoop*

_‘I’m letting him go, it’s up to you what happens after that.’_

Sherlock was shocked at the words, at the matter-of-fact manner in which Laila spoke them, as if the outcome mattered little to her. Even if John didn’t want him, Sherlock couldn’t let him go through that alone; judging by her previous performances, it was sure to be a spirited public display.

Sherlock waited for twenty minutes before following the couple to the pub. He spotted them through the window, surrounded by hangers-on; all drunk except for the couple in question.  As he’d rather sit and do brunch with Mycroft than be surrounded by intoxicated morons, he found himself hesitating briefly before entering. The crowd was dense but he pushed through, deciding to sit at the bar instead of standing alone in the chaos. Despite the crowd it was easy to position himself with the perfect angle to watch his targets in the mirror along the back of the liquor shelf.

Laila met his eye over a bottle of Skyy vodka when she spotted him, and gave him a subtle nod. He didn’t want to respect her but damn if she wasn’t devious in a way he could admire. She’d played him like a fiddle and he’d resonated with each pluck. No wonder Mycroft wanted her for his team; he’d seen her potential before Sherlock had done.  He’d have to thank her one day for the foresight in keeping London’s heroin and cocaine dealers from selling to him. He’d been livid at the time but it was the right call and he was glad for it.

It seemed Laila had seen everything. Everything except _this_ …

“Sherlock,” Irene purred, shoving a middle aged man out of the chair beside him so she could slide in. The man took one look at her, closed his mouth, and walked away. She hadn’t even taken her coat off yet.

“Go on and laugh, I know you want to,” she went on, sliding the black fur down her shoulders..

“Irene,” Sherlock acknowledged, giving her just a hint of a smile, despite knowing giving her an inch would see him dragged for miles.  

“We’ll both have the Glenlivet, neat,” Irene told the bartender, but Sherlock held up a hand before he could fill the order.

“Just a Coke for me, thanks.” When Irene raised an eyebrow at him, he explained, “I’ve been drinking too much lately. And one needs a clear head when Ms. Adler is around.”

She studied him, looking for chinks in his armour. “They said you’d gone soft.”

“Who said?” He asked.

“You know,” Irene wiggled her fingers in the air vaguely, “ _them_.” She accepted her scotch like a Queen, no acknowledgment of how it had come into her hand. It was a wonderful performance.

Sherlock studied her while he sipped his soda. It was disgusting but John enjoyed it, and anything that reminded him of John was enjoyable. Usually.

“What brings you into a place like this? Not your usual, is it?” Sherlock pointed out.

She tilted her head and smiled a secret smile. “I could ask you the same. Following a lead perhaps? Not for fun, surely.”

Sherlock scoffed lightly. “Are you suggesting I don’t know how to have fun?”

“Not in a place like this.” Irene looked around with derision, absently running her fingers over his forearm, and Sherlock knew instantly she’d come here for him specifically. Now, all he had to do was get the reason out of her. No easy task; she’d make him play first. “What have you been doing for fun lately?” She went on. “More of that amatuer detecting?”

He ignored her condescending tone and leaned in to whisper, “Haven’t you heard? I’ve got a real detective in my pocket these days.”

“I’ve got five.”

They stared at each other until she cracked, and they both laughed. Irene really was quite lovely. White Oleander - beautiful but poisonous.

Sherlock kept her talking, reading between the lines when she said she spent some time in France and Belgium with friends. Apparently, from what little he could extrapolate, there was a new player in town, and Sherlock had been mentioned by name. Irene was the bait.

“I find the Kingdom of Belgium lacking in satisfactory criminal element,” Sherlock commented, finishing the rest of his soda. “The Netherlands influence, no doubt. Too progressive.”

“I don’t know,” she swirled her pinkie finger in her scotch and, in what was no doubt supposed to be sexual in nature, let the excess drip onto her tongue, “necessity is the mother of invention after all. Perhaps it’s a matter of breeding a better class of criminal.”

Sherlock grinned. _Excellent_. A case worth pursuing. It had been months since his last, one worthy of John’s attention anyway. Sherlock had been waiting for something good, something to sink his teeth into and tear at, something that wouldn’t net John another girlfriend like the first damned case he’d taken his partner on. He couldn’t wait to meet the individual in question, this ‘better class of criminal’ that had ensnared Irene Adler of all people.

He opened his mouth to ask outright, but before he could, something plinked off his head. He reached up and pulled a plastic stir-stick shaped like a cutlass out of his hair. Confused, he looked up in the mirror and caught Laila gesturing wildly at him, clearly livid. Sherlock turned fully in his seat to scan the room until he found John.

“Oh, no,” he muttered. “Will you excuse me?”

Sherlock didn’t even wait to hear her response. It was imperative Sherlock get to John before he broke the Neanderthal’s nose in front of him. Well, Sherlock pondered, perhaps they could both get into the fight. It might act as a bonding experience and perhaps they’d even get to share a cell together.  

John was turning a vivid shade of red, his body language screaming his intent for violence, as Sherlock approached from behind.

“Not that it’s any of your fucking business, _David_ , but no, I’m not,” John was saying.

“But you’re living together,” Mary, John’s ex, pointed out, halting Sherlock’s progress forward. They were talking about him, about Sherlock.

John’s fists flexed at his side, and then his left hand came up to point right in Mary’s face. “You listen here. I have never, nor _will I ever_ , shag Sherlock Holmes. If the world had just ended and Sherlock miraculously acquired a working reproductive system and it was up to us to repopulate the Earth, _I still would not shag Sherlock Holmes_. Do we understand each other?”

Sherlock knew it wasn’t the case, but just then it was like the entire pub had heard and had gone silent. One would think he'd already reached the lowest point in his already low experience with John's vehement denial, but never let it be said that John wasn't willing to get creative with his whips and lances.

Mary glanced at Sherlock standing behind John, and then up at David, giving him a little ‘well this is awkward’ look. John wasn’t stupid, he knew Sherlock was behind him, had heard every word; he could read it in the way John's shoulders stiffened.

Sherlock would be damned if he’d give John the satisfaction of seeing the damage he’d caused.

He turned tail and fled, straight through the crowd and out onto the street, buttoning his coat as he went, flipping the collar up to shield his face.

“Oi, what the hell was that?” John called out behind him. Sherlock could hear John’s steps as he ran but he ignored them as he trudged forward against the bitter wind. “I’m talking to you! Stop, dammit.”

John went as far as to shove Sherlock sideways into an alleyway. It took a moment for Sherlock to right himself but once he did, he moved to step around John. He wasn’t going to let John get to him. He wasn’t!

“No, you’re not running this time.” John shoved him again. Sherlock growled but John wasn’t fazed. “Do you know what you made that look like? Do you even care?”

“I can see that you do,” he spit back, going on the offensive, despite his resolve. Anything to make John stop.

John shook his head. “No. You don’t get to do that, pretend like you give a shit what I think.”

“I _don’t_ care,” Sherlock snapped. “What do I care if you never shag me? Makes no difference to me. Go on shagging whomever you please, I’ll be _fine!_ ”

Everything went still, John simply stared back at him, calculating. It terrified Sherlock; he could feel his heart racing, his breath sawing in and out, clouding the air in obvious white puffs.

“Sherlock…” John hesitated, looking unsure of what, exactly he wanted to ask, but the softness precluded some sort of pity that incensed Sherlock further.

John wanted to spit hateful lies? Fine. Sherlock was well versed in black vitriol.

“You think I would ever want someone like you?” He sneered. “I went to Harrow. My brother has the Prime Minister on speed dial. I could have dinner with Swedish Royalty tomorrow if I wished.” He leaned forward, into John’s space. “Why would I ever want someone like _you_?”

Without missing a beat John replied, “You seemed keen the night you begged me to suck you off.”

“It is your forte after all, bravo, but a willing throat doesn’t need to stick around after I’m done with it.”

That remark earned Sherlock a bloody lip. His head snapped back, pain blooming bright, making the situation more real somehow. _This_ he understood. And so he retaliated.

John dodged the first swing but Sherlock connected with the follow up, snapping John’s head to the side. He didn’t wait for John to try again, Sherlock grabbed him by the jacket and swept him to the ground, intent on beating John until nothing hurt except his fists.

He stopped after the very first punch to John’s ribs, when the unmistakable sound of snapping bone pulled Sherlock upright in horror. His mouth gaped as he ran his hands over John’s torso, assessing the damage. John snarled and shoved him off, twisting away.

“Are you- Did I-”

“Shut up,” John snapped. “Just shut the hell up.” He sat up and brushed at his jacket.

Relief flooded Sherlock to see he hadn’t actually broken John’s rib; John wouldn’t be sitting up if he had. He watched as John’s hand slid into his coat pocket and slowly produced a handful of broken skull fragments.

Sherlock blinked at the strange evidence before him. “You...still have that.”

John didn’t respond immediately; instead he picked through the pieces until he could get a grip on the tiny beak. He studied it in the murky streetlight, sadness etched into lines on his face; lines Sherlock had put there.

“I knew you remembered,” John muttered softly, “I knew you did.”

Instead of confirming what they both already knew, Sherlock instead asked, “ _Why_ do you still have that?”

John’s hand tilted, letting the bone fragments roll onto the pavement. “As a reminder.” He looked up and met Sherlock’s eyes. “To stop trying. To stop hoping. You asked me not to look for you, so I didn’t look. You said committed to your work, so I didn’t ask. You agreed to train me to fight as long as I didn’t touch you _like that_ , so I didn’t. You-” He swallowed hard, looking away. “You told me you loved me, and then you _conveniently_ forgot. I asked you if you’d ever been kissed, and you named somebody else.”

Sherlock was so utterly confused by all John had said he started to retreat into his head to understand. Had he really told John he loved him? When? The cough syrup! Yes, that was the reason behind the anger, now it made sense.

“I’m done, Sherlock. I’m not playing this game anymore. I can’t. If you care for me at all, you’ll make this easier and just leave me be.”

But that didn’t explain everything else John was apparently upset over. He thought _Sherlock_ was rejecting _him_? Absurd! He knew the letter he'd written, the clue about Regent’s Park, had flown right over John’s head, obviously; that had become apparent after they met again at Baker Street. But what was everything else about? How could he construe those things as rejection, when half of them had been either been attempts to get John to slow down, or in retaliation for John's own cruelties. The last one specifically. If John hadn’t started singing about missing his damned girlfriend!

“That one was on you, I wouldn’t have- Ow."

“Snap out of it, you bloody idiot!" Laila screeched at Sherlock, shaking his shoulders.

“Did you just slap me?" His left cheek stung, giving evidence to the assault. He shoved her away and glanced around, absently working his tongue around inside his mouth, tasting the fresh welling of blood from John's initial punch. “Where the hell is John?"

Laila gestured around to the empty pavement around them. “You tell me! How did you manage to muck it up in under twenty minutes?”

Twenty minutes?It hadn’t been that long, had it?  “I- We didn’t… He’s the one who-”

Laila groaned dramatically and pulled her mobile from her coat as she stomped off, cutting Sherlock’s rambling, incoherent explanation short. He wanted to yell after her but there was no time. He had to find John.

If the situation weren’t dire, Sherlock would never stoop so low, but desperate times and all that. He pulled his mobile and hit the speed dial.

As soon as the ringing stopped, Sherlock snapped, “Find John.”

A weary sigh travelled the line and then a droll voice responded, “I should have gotten you both a dog for Christmas. A bloodhound or a spaniel perhaps. It would have saved me time and energy.”

“Stop blabbering and just do it!”

“It’s not _my_ fault you lost him,” Mycroft drawled, as if he had all the time in the world. “And anyway, it would be a gross misuse of my power-”

“I left the bloody chip in his shoe for just this reason, you smug cow, now utilize its purpose and _find him!_ ”

People on the street were staring but Sherlock ignored them in favour of listening to Mycroft type. Satisfaction overrode his irritation as Mycroft groaned, as if lifting his fat fingers to type was harder than using them to eat.

He almost said as much but the line went silent and seconds later Mycroft snorted.

“What?” Sherlock demanded, suddenly terrified.

“You really did a number on him, didn’t you?”

Of course John would run straight back to the club scene, of course he would. That was the obvious answer, wasn’t it? Sherlock pulled the phone away from his head and groaned mournfully, doubling over in agony.

_Some other man is touching John… My John…._

__

It took several deep, steadying breaths before Sherlock could put the phone back to his ear.

“Which one?” He asked in a flat voice, knowing Mycroft would understand that the time for games was over.

“The Shadow Lounge on-”

Sherlock hung up, knowing all too well where it was located. He’d thank Mycroft later, if John was in fact there.

He was running before he even decided to move, instinctively heading toward the correct underground station. The time waited traveling was intolerable but there was little he could do but wait; the train could hardly be bribed to go any faster. Probably… Bribery had worked on nearly every other civil servant Sherlock had encountered. He shook that thought off and focused on the present.

Of course he was currently surrounded by what seemed like nothing but loving couples, embracing and laughing and generally carrying on in ways Sherlock had never paid any mind to before. Down the carriage sat a couple Sherlock felt particularly drawn to, his eyes locked onto the silent, good-natured battle between the two. Neither of them looked anything like Sherlock or John, but it mattered little; they were simply two men, clearly mock-fighting over appropriate public displays of affection, trading affectionate kisses and sly gropes. The playful back and forth teasing sent Sherlock back into his mind.

What would John be like as a romantic partner, with Sherlock particularly? Would they hold hands? Would John shy away from public kissing? Did Sherlock even _want_ public displays of affection?

He stared at the woven fingers of his fellow travellers and thought, _yes, I do_. John's hand would fit into Sherlock's perfectly - small but strong. He wanted people to know John had chosen him, was proud to stand beside him.

_Find John. Apologize. Explain._

__

_Prostrate. Beg. Plead._

__

_Whatever it takes._

As soon as the train stopped he was off again, racing south toward the bustling club district. It was good Sherlock had the forethought to have bribed the bouncers so generously in the past, as it afforded him the luxury of bypassing the line out front, straight into the club without pause.

Even on a Sunday night the club was busy - noisy, distracting, garish, hateful. If John weren't somewhere inside Sherlock wouldn't step foot inside ever again; he'd already had eleven shirts ruined by spilt liquor, nursed several migraines from the too loud music and the flashing lights.

None of that mattered, he had to push through, had to find John.

He tried the dance floor first, that was John's usual M.O. when he first arrived, but after frantically cutting through the crush he didn't catch a hint of sandy blond hair or John's broad shoulders. The bar was empty except for a few patrons waiting for drinks, all nine of them not John. A sick feeling welled in Sherlock’s guts, because if John wasn't on the dance floor or at the bar, he was in the loo, and that meant it was too late.

He marched toward the hall, through the tables that were elevated up from the dancefloor. A quick double check confirmed none of the patrons seated were John either. The hallway was nearly as crowded as the main area, it took a second of scanning but halfway between the exit door and the men’s loo, he found John, crowded up against the wall by a tall black man in a tight green cashmere jumper.

Sherlock growled and stomped forward.

“Leave,” he snapped.

Bernard didn’t even turn, so Sherlock gripped him by the shoulder and forcibly turned him. He wasn’t the least bit fazed by the man’s height advantage, which compared with John’s lack thereof was nearly comical. Speaking of John, his face went from pleased to livid instantly.

“Oi, he’s his own man,” Bernard was trying to argue, but Sherlock tuned him out.

“What the fuck, Sherlock!” John snarled.

“I need to speak with you, please.”

Bernard joined in again, “He obviously doesn’t want to talk with you.”

Sherlock recalled everything he’d learned about poor Bernard and immediately weaponized it without mercy. “And your boss obviously doesn’t want you, he’s just using you to piss off his wife. You know it but you’re still letting him do it. Coming here doesn’t piss him off at all, no matter how many people you sleep with, he doesn’t care. None of that interests me, sleep with whomever you chose. _Just. Not. John._ ”

Bernard tried to puff up, an intimidation tactic that might work on a lesser man, one who couldn’t read him like a book, but as it was, Sherlock merely raised an eyebrow.

“Either you share him or you don’t. This playing around shit isn’t fair,” Bernard eventually muttered.

“Life rarely is,” Sherlock responded, tilting and gesturing with his head for Bernard to leave.

“To hell with you both then. Loonies.”

John stared as Bernard stomped off, a look of disbelief writ across his face, one that quickly morphed into that blistering rage he’d held onto since their fight.

“I need to speak to you,” Sherlock reiterated, trying desperately to project his need.

“Piss off.” John started to stomp off as well but Sherlock sacrificed kindness for efficiency and simply grabbed John round the bicep, hauling him out the back door and into the alley.

John spit like a cat, angry and puffed up but didn’t immediately take off when Sherlock let go, so he jumped to his explanation.

“You’re an idiot.”  No, that wasn’t right, he wanted John to stay but he was turning away. “No, John, listen-”

John turned back and snapped, “No, you listen-”

“No, _you_ listen!”

John opened his mouth to keep arguing but snapped it shut with a click. His face did that thing where it looked like he wanted to smile but Sherlock knew better at this point than to think it meant John was in a good mood. He, again, jumped at the silence provided.

“No more games, no more lies, no more manipulation. I’ll tell you everything.”

John looked sceptical, body still turned half away like he wanted to flee. “About what exactly?”

Sherlock thought about that list John had given, his evidence of Sherlock’s rejection, the evidence of John’s _idiocy_.

“The note, the one I left with the skull?” He asked. John nodded. “Where did I say I found the skull?”

John frowned but Sherlock raised his eyebrows, asking to be humoured.

“Regent’s. You said you found it in Regent’s. What does that matter?”

The first response to call John an idiot again was stamped down. “I walked Regent’s every day for a week. Waiting for you.”

John blinked up at him, tiny flutters that Sherlock imaged shifted the air towards him.

“It… was a clue?” John drawled, confused but working it out.

Sherlock nodded, embarrassed but still willing to open himself to the pain if it meant John understood.

“But why did you say not to come find you?”

Sherlock shrugged, jamming his hands in his pockets, embarrassment forcing more and more blood under his skin, as if he needed to showcase it.

“You were being coy? Really?” John didn’t sound convinced. In fact, he snorted derisively. “And I suppose the Wotsits and the John Grisham novels were your attempt to _woo_ me.”

Sherlock didn't mean to flinch but it happened anyway. He clenched his eyes shut, shutting John out, his embarrassment complete enough without seeing the derision on his face. The instinct to strike back came first but he _must_ learn from his mistakes or forfeit any chance at all of showing John the truth.

He opened his eyes to find John staring up at him with a look of bewilderment.

“You-" John shook his head. “I think you need to explain. More. Better. Something."

Sherlock nodded his agreement. “Yes, as I was saying, I didn't think you'd actually listen when I instructed you to stay away. It wasn't until the day you came to Baker Street that I realized the message had been misunderstood, not ignored, but by then it was too late anyway."

“Why?" John demanded, brows furrowed. He was wondering why Sherlock had lied that day, hidden the truth.

And so Sherlock would have to explain.

“Promise me you'll let me finish, without interrupting." John obviously didn't want to agree, in fact he opened his mouth to argue but Sherlock cut him off. “Please, I can't properly explain if you fight me at every turn."

John growled at that but nodded his reluctant agreement.

Sherlock took a breath, gathered his thoughts, and cautiously went on.

“When it became apparent that you didn't want to seek me out, I sought you out instead." John’s brow furrowed even further, if possible. “You don't need me to tell you to where and what I saw. Do you?"

The blood drained from John's face, his expression melted away as the realization of where they currently were, all that it meant, dawned on him.

“When Bernard said we were loony, he thought we were together. Why?"

Sherlock almost admonished John for interrupting but licked his lips and answered the question. “Because I told him we were." John went to interrupt again but Sherlock rushed to explain. “That's what I told all of them. The ones I sent your way. You were being reckless, so angry after Mary you didn't care who you slept with. So I cared for you. Found men that I screened myself, and once they cleared, pushed them in your direction. Even if you didn't want me, I would still have you be safe... as possible anyway."

John shook his head through the entire explanation. “But when I-"

“When you started to ask at the hospital," Sherlock finished. “I wasn't ready, I didn't know what I wanted. I liked the idea of our trying… something, but I just needed to go slower. You were a thousand times more experienced and it... It was intimidating, _is_ intimidating. Same for the hair pulling incident. I think we both know what happened there."

John's colour returned, and he glanced at everything but Sherlock. He hadn't been sure John had. . . expressed interest in that, but now it was obvious he had. So they had both enjoyed it; that was good to know, for future reference. If there was a future to explore. He had better move on.

“When I asked you to move in, it wasn't just a convenient offer - you get your own space, I get my brother off my back - I wanted to give the idea of... _more_ a chance to settle. But then you started seeing Laila and that was... Hard. I reacted badly. The cough syrup, my birthday, the fight, Victor, all of it. I'm sorry, John. You were singing about her and it was like a slap in the face."

John shook his head in confusion, looked ready to interrupt again so Sherlock plowed forward.

“I understand that you don't date men, I don't quite understand why, perhaps a boyfriend in the past, I don't know, you don't have to explain, but I have tried to respect the decision. It's just," Sherlock struggled to say the words, to lay his heart on the ground at John's feet. “Since you are single again, sorry about that as well, could you perhaps see yourself, not a _relationship_ per se, but maybe-"

“Stop," John snapped, voice dark, closing Sherlock's throat as effectively as a hand would have done.

John's fists were balled, anger radiating out from every angle. He glanced back up at Sherlock from under his brow.

“You don't know what you're saying, Sherlock." Despite Sherlock's scowl, John went on. “You're confusing our friendship for something else. I understand, you haven't had close friends before, but this isn't... It's not the same," he choked out.

Sherlock's first instinct was to snap out a scathing observation about John's intelligence but he refrained, _again_. “You want me, and I understand _that_ ," he explained carefully, "why wouldn't I understand my own desires?"

John shuffled uncomfortably, hands fidgeting with his coat hem. “All right," he swallowed, “I'll grant you that but it doesn't mean we just... That." He seemed to come to a realization, a point in his favour. “And anyway, you only ever want me when you're high. What does that say?"

Sherlock thought about slapping John and then kissing him and then slapping him again, consecutively.

“I want you right now and I'm stone cold sober. What does _that_ say?” John’s eyes met Sherlock’s and held, his tongue started to peek out but he recalled it back, as if aware of the habit and its effect on Sherlock. The space between them grew quiet but heated. In the periphery, Sherlock was aware of the pounding bass emanating from the club, but it took second chair to the pounding of his own pulse. John was working something out, coming to a conclusion, and the outcome would change Sherlock’s life.

“You… You were saying something before I interrupted you. What was it?”

_This is it, you tidal wave of destruction. Don’t screw it up._

__

He gripped the torch in his pocket and compulsively clicked the button on and off while he slowed his thoughts enough to study each one. “I was explaining, understanding that you don’t have relationships with males, I would appre- enjoy, greatly enjoy, your continuing to live at Baker Street, continuing to solve crimes with me, while being friends... who also happen to... do physical things... and share a significant portion of their time together, excluding other people.” He thought about the couple on the train, and decided on an addendum. “Also, I'd like very much if we held hands and also you can touch my hair. If you want."

All was silent. Since Sherlock had given his speech to the brick beside John's head, he had no way of knowing how John was reacting to his offer.

“Sherlock. You just described a relationship."

_Oh, wonderful. Splendid._

“I did?" He glanced at John, ready to apologize, but the look on John's face stopped the words in their tracks.

Before Sherlock could parce anything, John was on him, levering himself up as high as he could go on his tip toes. The kiss threw them both backwards, Sherlock being ill-prepared to take John's weight. He didn't mind being thrown up against the concrete building, in fact he barely felt it. All of his concentration was on his lips where they connected with John's, where his hands lay on John's waist as he'd caught him, on John's hands bracketing his face, working further into his hair by the second.

“Mmm, I don't understand," Sherlock managed under the wicked assault.

“That's a first," John whispered back into Sherlock's mouth.

John then worked his way down, across Sherlock's jaw line, toward his ear and then down via his sternocleidomastoid tendon. It was decidedly distracting, causing the most embarrassing noise to escape Sherlock's throat.  He sounded needy, pathetic.

“God, do that again," John groaned, continuing his attention on Sherlock's throat.

He wouldn't, he refused.

John bit down, and not only did Sherlock repeat the noise, he thrust his hips forward in a desperate attempt to find something to rut against. John saw fit to help him by positioning his hips directly in front, and they both groaned at the contact. Sherlock found that if he slid down the wall a bit he could bring their cocks into perfect alignment.

“Oh, fuck, that's good." John pressed back, rubbing his massive erection along Sherlock's own.

It was so massive, in fact, that Sherlock felt as if he could feel every rigid vein pressed up against him, the flair of the corona, the pulse of his shaft - everything. They might as well not even be wearing trousers.

“Why did you think I didn't want this?" John demanded roughly.

“This wasn’t the part I thought you’d have a problem with," he answered back.

John laughed, a gratifying sound. “I meant, fuck. I meant why did you think I wouldn't want all of you? Of course I want to hold hands and solve crimes and be yours. Of course I want that."

“Everything?" Sherlock asked, shocked.

“Yes," John hissed, bringing their mouths back together.

Letting John direct the kiss, take the lead, felt so bloody good. The way he tilted Sherlock's head just so, how he coaxed Sherlock's tongue out playfully, every nuance was filed and saved. John tasted like Coke and some strange part of Sherlock found joy in the knowledge that he likely tasted the same.

He pulled John closer, somehow, close enough to feel John’s floating ribs constrict between his arms. Other than a grunt, John didn’t complain at all, just wrapped his arms tighter underneath Sherlock’s coat, letting his hands fist in the material of Sherlock’s shirt.

“Can I touch you?” Sherlock practically begged, grunting the words straight into John’s mouth. He could barely think of anything else, he just wanted the bloody thing in his hands. John’s transport seemed to have that effect on him.

John, without hesitation, snatched Sherlock’s arm and slapped his hand against the bulge in his trousers, molding his fingers around its girth. Sherlock couldn’t remember being so thrilled, except perhaps the night John, with even less prompting, had swallowed his cock like Sallementro.

“Fuck,” John breathed, the tail end of the expletive trailing off into a groan as Sherlock experimented with resistance to pressure, measuring the actual length and girth, now that he could do so with a clear head. _Semi-clear head_ , he corrected.

“For crying out loud, John, this makes no logical sense. What the hell do you need twenty-three centimeters worth of erectile tissue for?”

John let out a surprised snort against Sherlock’s neck. Lips at Sherlock’s ear, he growled, “Take me home and I’ll show you.”

Sherlock sucked in a breath so fast he nearly choked on it. He glanced down to see John grinning up at him, and, before he could respond, found himself pulled into another synapse-destroying kiss.

“Oi! Poofs! Take that shite inside, eh?”

John’s lips stilled against Sherlock’s incrementally as the voice from the street filtered in.

“Ignore him,” Sherlock commanded, to no avail apparently.

John pulled away, stumbling just a bit, Sherlock was pleased to see, as he turned toward the man at the front of the alley. Sherlock was directly behind, ready to pull John back if necessary.

“What’d you say?” John asked, head cocked sarcastically, daring the man to repeat himself now that John was closing in on him.

“I _said_ , take your queer shite and get it off the damn street,” the man repeated, fists mirroring John’s, clenching, ready.

Before John could so much as flex his bicep, Sherlock responded, “The street. Yes, strange you should bring that up, the street.”

“What?” The man’s thick, Barking accent snapped. He took a step forward, a pathetic attempt at intimidating.

“You, an aggressive homophobe, wandering around the part of Soho notorious for its gay bars. Not a hard connection to make there. Sort of a cliché at this point, isn’t it?” He snorted, looking to see if John found the situation as funny as he did.

John looked ready to do murder. Perhaps, Sherlock thought, _I should end this before it escalates further and we end up in custody. Or before John realizes this is more trouble than it’s worth. God, is that why he’s so angry? Is it too late?_

__

While Sherlock was busy panicking, the homophobe was busy working himself up to a strop. “You calling me a queer?” He yelled, voice breaking in his agitation. “I’ll slit your fucking throat, mate.”

He took a step forward to grab at Sherlock’s coat, but John was ready, throwing a wild left, catching the man directly in the chin, knocking him off guard. John quickly took advantage, putting him right up against the window of the building adjacent with a hand wrapped in his jacket.

“Do you have any idea how much bullshit I’ve dealt with to get here tonight? What you’ve interrupted?” John growled right into the man’s face. Sherlock watched, wide-eyed, as John rattled the man’s head against the glass with both hands at his collar. “I could kill you for that alone!”

The man’s skull made a particularly nasty sound against the window pane and the fight went out of him. That didn’t mean John was done shaking him though; he was now just mostly rolling his head around on his neck.

Sherlock finally snapped out of his surprise and rushed forward. “John! John, John stop.” He yanked at John’s shoulders, desperate to get him away before he killed the man.

John turned and glanced at Sherlock in shock, as if forgetting he was there. He blinked six times in rapid succession and then merely dropped the man onto the pavement, backing away as if burnt. They ignored the man’s pitiful groans, both too wrapped up in each other’s hard panting to hear his half-hearted attempts to threaten.

Sherlock rushed at John, caught him around the middle and slammed him against the concrete building, smashing his mouth down and into John’s with a zeal that caused one or both of them to bleed. Most likely Sherlock, from his previously busted lip.

John thrust wildly against Sherlock’s thigh and demanded, “Take me home, take me home right now.”

“Yes,” he agreed, a hiss of breath against John’s chin. He yanked at John’s sleeve, pulling him around the subdued man on the pavement and out into the street.

Traffic trickled thin, being Sunday, but Sherlock managed to hail a cab after dragging John for a block or two. John, for once, didn’t complain at being man-handled.

“Baker Street, two twenty-one,” he snapped at the driver, yanking John in after him. He landed up against the opposite door, and, with a bit of wiggling, managed to get John on top of him.

“Ummph,” John grunted when Sherlock tugged him down. “Not in the cab, Sherlock.”

“Why not?” He queried, genuinely confused as to why they weren’t snogging. John glanced at the cabbie and Sherlock rolled his eyes. “John, he’s picking up fares after midnight in the rainbow district of Soho, it’s not his first time seeing two blokes snog in the backseat.”

“Got that right,” the cabbie mumbled dryly, turning up the radio.

Sherlock grinned up at John, reveling in being proven right. John tried his best to hold back his smile and failed spectacularly. It sent an electric pulse through Sherlock’s abdomen, rolling warm through his limbs to tingle pleasantly in his fingertips. He pulled John down and continued where they’d left off before being interrupted.

John moaned into Sherlock’s mouth. “We’re going to come in our pants like teenagers at this rate,” he noted, though clearly not bothered enough to stop grinding his cock into Sherlock’s thigh.

Sherlock cupped John’s arse, pulled him in tighter, and deftly pointed out, “I _am_ a teenager.”

“Christ, don’t remind me of that _now_ ,” John bemoaned the fact, one Sherlock could hardly help.

 

“Three and a half years is hardly-” Sherlock tried to, sensibly, explain but John cut him off with a growl, smashing his lips into Sherlock’s without a care. Sherlock mentally shrugged and filed the argument away for later, opting to instead allow John the liberty of examining the back of Sherlock's mouth with his tongue. The streetlights painted them in alternating flashes of blue and gold, and Sherlock thought he’d never ride in a cab again and not think of this moment.

“I wasn’t being reckless.”

“Yes, you were,” Sherlock argued without breaking the kiss.

“I meant, yeah I was, but I wasn’t doing it because of Mary.” When Sherlock cocked his head questioningly, John explained. “I was looking for this. What we’ve got,” he kissed Sherlock again, “and it drove me crazy, not finding it again. I mean, yeah I was having fun, but this, this is different.”

_John thinks I’m special._ Sherlock grinned and John caught it with his lips again.

“Here, boys, and god help you if you stiff me on the fare,” the cabbie announced.

John pulled away, looking down at Sherlock with an amused smirk. “You should tip him.”

Sherlock responded by reaching up for another kiss. John laughed into his mouth before using Sherlock’s chest to push off, leaving him to take care of the fare while he unlocked the front door. He threw the fare through the window and ran after John, finding a trail of clothes leading up the stairs.

He snarled and flew up the seventeen steps, nearly slipping on John’s vest near the top, trailing his own articles of clothing in the hall. By the time Sherlock entered his bedroom, John was sitting on his bed in just his pants, breathing hard and grinning like he’d pulled off a particularly neat trick. Sherlock leaned casually up against the doorframe and studied him, as if his heart wasn’t racing at the sight, as if they had all the time in the world. John quirked an eyebrow but didn’t comment. His eyes tracked as Sherlock slid the rest of his shirt off his shoulders and let it fall to the floor without care, watched as he slowly thumbed the clasp of his trousers open. When the trousers were kicked away, revealing his own grey boxer briefs, John made a noise in his throat, a gratifying sound that soothed Sherlock’s vague anxiety.

“Sherlock,” John managed, drawing Sherlock’s eyes up from where they’d lingered around John’s bare feet. “You said earlier… that you’d wanted to go slow,” he let the statement linger open-ended, a question of intent.

“I find I’ve had enough of slow. Haven’t you?”

John answered by simply holding his hand out.

Sherlock rushed forward and they fell into bed, laying the wrong way, but it didn’t matter, not with John’s hands clasped in his, not when John laid him down and pounced on top to stretch them out together. John’s thigh insinuated itself over Sherlock’s, his cock pressed insistently against Sherlock’s hip. He attempted to maintain his resolve, but for crying out loud, the thing was too entirely _present_.

John was too busy nipping at Sherlock’s collarbone to notice the way Sherlock’s fingers twitched in his grasp. God, he wanted his hands on it again.

“You’ve no idea how often I’ve thought of this,” John mumbled the confession into Sherlock’s shoulder, licking a stripe across his skin, tasting him.

A bit breathless, Sherlock teased, “Really? What am I, a piece of meat?”

He felt the answering snort from John. “Yes,” he nibbled some more at the fleshy bit of his shoulder, “delicious, you are.”

“Apparently,” Sherlock replied absently, more aware of the sensation John caused, than the conversation.

John, slowly, slid further on top, draping himself lightly over Sherlock’s frame. So close he could feel the heat from John's body but not nearly close enough. Sherlock attempted to drive this point home by canting his hips forward, to no avail, meeting nothing but air.  

“I thought we agreed not to go slowly," he growled. John grinned evilly, a fair warning to his frame of mind. “John, did we not just agree?”

“I agreed to nothing,” John responded, lowering his head to nip at Sherlock’s collarbone again. “In fact,” a swipe of his tongue, “I think I would like to go slow.”

Sherlock made an inarticulate noise, a whinge he wasn’t afraid to admit at this point; John merely laughed. He squeezed Sherlock’s wrists in his grasp once, pressing them into the mattress as if to say ‘be still’. Sherlock obeyed, but just barely. He was curious as to John’s plans.

He watched, and felt, as John’s hands slid from his wrists, down his arms, to map the contours of his too skinny chest. What John could even find remotely attractive about it Sherlock didn’t know, but that he did was obvious. The way John’s eyes lingered here and there, his tongue making appearances every few seconds, the flush of his skin - the signs were there and Sherlock didn’t mistake them for anything other than sexual attraction.

When he slid further down, his fingers lingering over Sherlock’s hips, dipping under the band of his pants, Sherlock inhaled and held, not breathing out until John looked back up with a smirk.

“I’ve got a question,” John spoke, “and I want you to be honest.” Sherlock nodded frantically. “That first night at Colby’s...was that your first time?”

Sherlock blinked at John, partly in shame, partly in confusion. “Of course it was. I thought that was fairly obvious.”

The warmth of John’s smile melted the lingering embarrassment. “Just making sure.” He sent Sherlock’s heart into near cardiac arrest as he ran the back of his fingers lightly over Sherlock’s sensitive lower abdomen. _Christ_ , Sherlock whinged to himself, or possibly out loud, he wasn’t sure. “I had no idea I was so convincing, it’s kind of a nice ego boost. Pulling one over on the great Sherlock Holmes.”

“What-” Sherlock’s brow pinched. “What are you on about?” He huffed at the ceiling, trying to find coherence outside of John’s right pointer finger, which was making a nuisance of itself near Sherlock’s erection.

“How many cocks do you think I sucked before yours, my dear,” John muttered, nuzzling into Sherlock’s stomach.

He made some sort of high-pitched bird noise in his throat, both at the soft endearment and at John’s touch. “I’m sure I have no idea,” he managed, panting into the forearm he’d thrown over his face.

“Oh, c’mon, you never hazarded a guess? Never deduced it from my _expert_ technique?”

“Suppose I didn’t want to think about who came before,” Sherlock growled, getting desperate. “Why do you insist on torturing me? Either get to the point of this nonsense or you can continue on babbling to my corpse, since I’ll have died of a massive stroke.”

Sherlock could feel John’s grin as it formed against his skin; he gently brushed the smile against Sherlock’s right hip bone.

“The answer is zero. I had sucked exactly zero cocks before yours that night. If you ask me how many men I’d kissed before that night the answer would be the same. Or even how many men I’d wanted to kiss, how many men I’d ever been sexually attracted to - zero.”

Sherlock shook his head and then looked down at John. “No,” he drawled, “that doesn’t make any sense.” He thought back to that night, the way John had looked at him, how obvious the attraction had been right off, the whole reason Sherlock had even entertained the notion of kissing him. He’d felt wanted, but not only that, he’d felt safe. In the right hands, as it were.

John merely shrugged, as if this news wasn’t momentous. “I thought you knew.”

“I didn’t.”

John’s smile said he enjoyed this bit of knowledge very much. “Well, now you know. So there’s no need to be embarrassed. We were each other’s first.”

Oh. That was true, wasn’t it? Sherlock’s grin grew as he processed the information, found that he enjoyed it immensely.

“Yeah,” John chuckled, “thought you’d like that. I’ve gotten better since then, I think.”

John seemed to be waiting for some kind of response from Sherlock, but, as he wasn’t able to think beyond John’s hot breath making the front of his pants moist, there didn’t seem to be much he could do to move the conversation along.

John went on without him. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot actually, how, if you’d just let me show you, you’d see how much better I’d gotten since the first time.”

At that point, John was speaking low and direct, right onto Sherlock’s cock through the cotton of his boxer briefs. Social niceties had never seemed to stick in Sherlock’s mind, so his hips didn’t see the problem with kicking forward and bumping John directly in the mouth. Sherlock might have felt chagrined had John not laughed at the eager display.

“All right, I’ll stop teasing. But just a taste, yeah? I have plans for you,” John muttered cryptically.

He’d planned on asking for clarification but before Sherlock could form the words, John started peeling Sherlock’s pants down his body, freeing the trapped erection to the cooler air. Sherlock gasped, shocked, ignoring the sensation of his pants slipping off his feet for the more pressing sensation of his cock slapping his abdomen. How he wanted to take it in hand; instinctively cradle it in his palm and squeeze away the ache.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you,” John crooned softly, aware of the urgent state of things.

He then made good on the statement, taking Sherlock in hand, gentle at first, but with more force when Sherlock rocked his hips in desperate need. He groaned, low and needy, wanting the promised warmth of John’s mouth but unable to beg just yet.

“You know, you look ready to pop already,” John remarked casually. “Maybe I should skip this bit.” Sherlock let John know what he thought of that suggestion with a look. “Okay killer, calm down, was only kidding.”

Sherlock then watched as John smiled down at his cock, like he had missed it, like it was a sodding nostalgic memento, just before he ran his tongue up the bottom of it. Christ, Sherlock was done for, done in, done over - some phrasal verb that he couldn’t grasp just then. His mind threatened to fold in on itself, as it was wont to do when he couldn’t handle a given situation, but he forced himself into the present. He’d be damned if he missed out on the glory that was John Watson laving at his erection like he could glean the answers to his year-end finals from it.

“Oh, god, John,” Sherlock cried when John took him inside fully. He’d severely under-appreciated the last time John had done it; must have been too drug-addled to have caught the subtle nuances. Or perhaps John really had gotten better. Whatever the case, the combination of heat, rigid tongue, gentle but quick suction, and low moans coming from John’s throat set Sherlock on a path he was loath to approach so quickly.

“John, stop. John! Seriously, stop,” he begged, clutching at John’s head in near panic, doing his best to scoot up the bed and away.

John frowned up at him. “Christ, I’m not _that_ good, you big baby.”

“I beg to differ,” Sherlock panted back, trying for stern and failing by a lot. He huffed at the ceiling, tried his very best to slow the heartbeat that had become his erection. “Just...give me a moment.”

John shuffled up to where Sherlock lay and flopped down. He kissed Sherlock’s shoulder gently before crawling up to kiss him proper on the mouth. Sherlock welcomed him, and was welcomed by him, to explore with lazy inhibition. The kiss turned heated quickly, the motion of John’s tongue against his own too much after knowing how it felt against other sensitive bits.

He pushed John away, squirming. “What did I just say? Dammit.”

John’s grin lit his entire face. “Oh, kissing too much for you now too?” He was teasing but when Sherlock glanced away in embarrassment he exclaimed, “Oh my god, it really is!” Sherlock glanced back to find John smiling like he’d done something particularly brilliant. He plopped his chin down onto Sherlock’s chest and stared. “What shall we do then while we wait?”

“We can discuss the cultural significance of silence in Japanese communication.”

John snorted, which sent a gust of warm air across Sherlock’s nipple, which then peaked with the stimulation, even as unintended as it had been. He ignored it.

“Did you just basically tell me to shut up?”

“I would never.”

“No,” John drawled, “I’m pretty sure you just told me to shut up.”

“John, come now, surely you know that if I-” His words cut off the instant John’s hand landed upon his thigh, snaking slowly inward.

“You were saying?”

“That I’m going to come untouched and then roll over to sleep,” Sherlock snapped back at him.

John seemed to thrill at this bit of snark. He leaned forward and kissed Sherlock hard on the mouth. He pulled back just far enough to whisper, “That would be a shame.”

“And why is that?” Sherlock obediently asked.

“Because I was going to have you work a few of those musician’s fingers up my arse and then I was going to ride you until we were both bone dry.”

Sherlock’s stomach swooped, and then lodged in his throat - no words would come. John seemed to understand what he’d done regardless. Probably something to do with whatever Sherlock’s face was doing.

“Like that idea? Good. Where do you keep your slick? Drawer?”

“I- Uh, I don’t...um,” he licked his lips nervously, “I don’t have any.”

John stopped pawing around in his bedside drawer, his quizzical expression melting into something decidedly more filthy.

“Ah, I see.”

Sherlock shuffled uncomfortably. “I rarely partake so there’s really no need for it,” he tried to explain but John chuckled and shook his head.

“Right, right. Definitely not because you leak like a faucet, no.” He leaned over, ignoring Sherlock’s blooming red face, to pat him on the thigh. “I just think we’re going to need a bit more than what you’ve got, love. No worries, I’ll pop upstairs and grab mine. Be back in a mo.”

“Wait!” Sherlock called out but his cries fell on deaf ears; John was already out the door.

As soon as he was out of sight Sherlock’s panic set in.

_He’s never coming back, he’ll forget why he had even bothered, turn tail and leave. What if he falls down the stairs on his way back and hits his head? He could get snatched on the way past the entry and be murdered before you even hear a sound._

“You’re lucky I just bought a new… Sherlock, jesus!” John marched back to the bed and cradled Sherlock’s face. “Hey, it’s all right, I’m here. Hey.” Sherlock continued to shiver, despite John’s proximity and his assurances. It was too much adrenaline in his system, too long having gone without John’s touch, just too much. John rubbed at Sherlock’s arms, ran his hands down to pull Sherlock’s away from the bed spread, where he’d gripped them and been unable to let go.

“I’m sorry, John,” Sherlock managed, voice still a bit shaky.

“Shh, stop. There’s nothing for you to apologize for, I shouldn’t have just taken off.”

Sherlock shook his head, licking his lips as he tried to articulate. “No, I need to learn to control my insecurities. You should be able to leave the room without my having a panic attack. It’s absurd.”

John merely smiled, like Sherlock was being particularly adorable. “How are you feeling now? Better?”

Sherlock lay back down against the mattress and let John continue to run his hands up his forearms. “Yes.”

“We don’t have to-” He shut his mouth with a click when Sherlock scowled up at him. “All right,” he chuckled, “let’s begin again, then, shall we?”

“Mmm,” Sherlock hummed at the feel of John’s hands running up his thighs from his knees, fingers digging pleasantly into the muscle.

John placed alternatively soft and wet kisses against his skin, the tip of his nose brushing the hair of his thigh with each pass. Sherlock’s cock, which had lost its vigour, perked back up at the attention to his lower half. Shivers raced up and over Sherlock’s skin at the lightest touches, raising gooseflesh and the hair of his arms. He couldn’t wait to to do the same for John, to explore his body in the same way.

“Hey, why don’t we lay the right way on the bed?” John suggested after a minute, and Sherlock nodded his agreement.

They shuffled until Sherlock was against the pillows, John stretched out along his right side. It seemed John was simply enjoying the view, until he closed his eyes with a chuckle, forehead to Sherlock’s chest.

“What?” Sherlock queried, sudden worry colouring his voice.

“It’s nothing,” John assured. “Just that, well, Laila’s going to be insufferable.” He smiled up at Sherlock, a twinkle in his eye.

“Mmm,” Sherlock agreed with a cautious touch at John’s back. “Was she really okay with this?”

“Oh, yeah, positively adamant. Kind of in on the whole thing from the beginning,” John admitted.

“Really,” Sherlock processed aloud, “so why the, uh, hmm…” His train of thought ran off when John nudged gently at Sherlock’s hip with his still clothed erection.

“Why all the subterfuge? She’s far too clever for her own good, let’s just say that. Hey, it all worked out well in the end, right?”

“Yes,” Sherlock hissed, hardly paying attention to the conversation.

“That thing we were discussing before I left… Still sound like a plan? Sherlock? Hey.” He flicked Sherlock in the nose.

“Christ! What!” Sherlock snapped, his focus shifting from his hip to his face.

“Are you listening?”

“No! Your cock is touching me, of course I’m not listening.”

“Oh,” John drawled, obviously finding this information useful, if not actively planning to weaponize it for his own gain. “You know, if I thought it was remotely possible…”

“What?” Sherlock breathed.

“Let’s just say, I’ve been coveting your arse from afar for a very long time. But tonight is not the night.”

Sherlock did some amalgamation of a nod and a shake of his head. “No! It could be, it could be that night.” _Oh, please, please, please,_ Sherlock begged with his eyes.

“No, Sherlock,” John stated sternly. “One of us has to have some sense here. It would take a hell of a lot more prep to get you there than me and neither one of us would last that long anyway.” Sherlock opened his mouth to argue but John cut him off. “I thought you liked the idea I came up with.” Sherlock made a face, one that conveyed John’s attempt at manipulation had been noted. “How about this?” He sat up, shoved his pants down his legs, and then straddled Sherlock’s hips with ease. “While I’m getting ready, you can explore to your heart’s content. Sound like a plan? If it sounds like a plan, continue to stare wide-eyed at my erection without responding. Okay, good.”

John reached back and grabbed the bottle of lubrication he’d dropped when he’d laid down. A part of Sherlock noted all of this but most of his attention was in fact riveted to John’s finally revealed erection. It was… It was… Words failed him. Without looking he could sense John’s smug attitude over the whole affair but he wouldn’t, couldn’t, pretend he wasn’t in awe.

“There’s a trick to this, I’ve found,” John mused aloud. “You have to trick yourself at first with a bit of faffing off around the outside, but then after a bit, you know, after you’re relaxed enough, you can slip right in.”

Sherlock watched, wide-eyed in partial shock, as John reached behind himself and, sight-unseen, worked at his opening. Sherlock breathed heavy at the sight of John’s eyes sliding closed in pleasure, the way he obviously knew what he was doing. God, had he been doing that upstairs this whole time? The thought sent a bolt of sharp lust right through Sherlock’s middle.

Without thinking, he tentatively reached out and placed his hand around John’s erection, but immediately pulled back when John’s eyes flew open and he sucked in a lungful of air.

“No! It’s okay, I just didn’t expect it,” John reassured him.

Again, Sherlock tentatively placed his hand around the length of it, felt the hot, pulsing life of it, and sighed in pleasure. John smiled, again in reassurance, but with a slightly abstract glaze that signified distraction. The shift of power went straight to Sherlock’s head. As soon as he moved his hand, testing the way John moaned or tilted his head or mumbled encouragement, it became apparent that Sherlock was absolutely right about pursuing a sexual relationship with John. He could easily become addicted to it.

“Okay, fuck, I’m ready. So, so ready. Are you? Can we?” John growled, attempting to extricate himself from Sherlock’s grasp.

He’d been having so much fun, Sherlock had nearly forgotten the reason behind John sitting on top of him.

“Didn’t you want…” He glanced down at his hand, unsure if he should volunteer so readily for an act he’d never performed before.

“Next time,” John assured. “Are you ready?”

“Oh, yes,” Sherlock nodded his acquiescence, “if you are, that is.”

“More than,” John answered. It was _fairly_ obvious.

Sherlock tensed up in partial shock when John covered his erection with the slick, he’d been so distracted by John’s penis he’d nearly forgotten his own. The remainder of its rigid existence threw the situation into stark relief. He was glad John had thought to bring condoms, because, though he was fairly sure they were both clean, he was more concerned with lasting any satisfactory length of time. It wouldn’t do for Sherlock to shoot off mid-breach their first go round.

Once the condom was rolled down, John looked to him. “Ready?”

Sherlock could only nod.

“This might take a bit. Never done it before, you know,” John explained, looking endearingly shy in that moment, like he was worried about disappointing Sherlock. Of all the ridiculous things…

He raised up and, with a small frown of concentration, moved them into alignment. Sherlock did his best to hold perfectly still, both to ease John’s path and to help memorize the moment as it happened. With the condom in place, it was hard to pinpoint the exact feeling - he’d have to have them tested soon so they could eventually do away with the thing - but soon the feeling of entering John became abundantly clear.

They both gasped at the feeling of Sherlock breaching John’s muscle. John’s right hand clawed at Sherlock’s side, almost tickling him, as he processed the feeling. To Sherlock it was like being squeezed tighter than he’s ever felt before, every twitch of muscle sending a wave of pleasure up his spine. He found it harder to sit still after that, as John slowly worked his way further down.

“Oh my god, this is amazing,” John groaned.

“Yes,” Sherlock readily agreed, nearly catatonic with pleasure.

“Have you tried this before?” John asked absently.

“Of course not!” How could he think that? He knew Sherlock hadn’t been with anyone else.

“I meant by yourself,” he clarified, settling Sherlock’s nerves.

“Oh.” Though pacified, he could feel himself going red. “I- I’ve imagined it. But never… no, never tried.”

“Hmm, gonna take a lot of practise then.” He did some sort of swivel maneuver that had Sherlock seeing stars. “I can’t wait.”

Sherlock could no longer keep up with the conversation. Between the sensation of being nearly completely enveloped inside John, the sight of himself disappearing inside, and the bob of John’s enormous cock, it was too much to process and still create audible speech patterns.

Again, they both groaned when John’s arse finally landed in Sherlock’s lap. He stayed there for a moment, clearly adjusting to the feeling of being totally filled, while Sherlock merely sat there like a stunned creature in the presence of a predator.

“I feel like I could do this all day,” John commented. Sherlock nodded but to himself he was thinking he’d probably last another two, possibly three minutes.

John leaned forward and rose up off of him and Sherlock calculated it down to forty-five seconds.

“John,” Sherlock groaned, a warning and a plea both. His hands gripped the sheet in his fists and bit down so hard on his lip that he once again opened the cut there to fresh bleeding.

“Like that?” John teased, the bastard. “Me too. Ugn, there it is,” he moaned in pleasure as he did it again, a slow slide up and down, and added to the torture by making little noises in his throat. It wasn’t fair, it just wasn’t fair. Sherlock was too intuned with every detail, it wasn’t possible to shut off all incoming data.

The horror of their first time not being perfect nearly sent Sherlock into a spiral of panic, but then John whispered, “Can you imagine doing this for the rest of our lives?”

And just like that the pressure dissipated. It didn’t have to be perfect, because they could do it again. And again, and again, and again… Forever until their bones fell to dust.

Sherlock rose up and pulled John down into a searing kiss, happiness bubbling up inside him at the thought of forever. John cried out, wrapping his arms tight around Sherlock’s shoulders as they rocked together.

“Touch me,” John begged, the words nearly intelligible against his mouth.

Sherlock answered, “Gladly,” and wedged his hand between their stomachs to hold John once again. Immediately John pulsed in his hand, moaning and rocking harder against him.

“Oh, god, don’t stop,” John begged, as if Sherlock were doing anything but allowing John use him to thrust upon.

Their timing was near perfect, John coating Sherlock’s hand and chest in hot ejaculate right about the time Sherlock flung his head back and came inside John with a shout.

John was kissing Sherlock’s throat as they came back down, and it occurred to him then and there that lovemaking didn’t end with orgasm. He could continue loving and being loved by John as long as he wanted. He tilted his head back down to get at John’s lips again, feeling such an immense welling of love pour out he might as well start writing bad poetry.

John melted against him, and Sherlock wrapped him up in his arms to pull them down against the mattress. Sherlock unfortunately slipped free during the manoeuvre.

John grunted. “I should take care of this before we get too comfortable to move.”

Sherlock saw the logic in that but instead of letting John up, he tightened his hold, causing John to chuckle against his ear.

“You won’t thank me in a minute when that come starts to cool and you're left with a soggy mess stuck to your dick.”

“You say such beautiful things,” Sherlock whispered back.

John laughed as he pressed another kiss to Sherlock’s mouth. He let John up after that, who carefully pulled the condom off and dropped it in the bin for him. Sherlock settled under the sheet while John meandered to the loo for a clean up. His mind was blissfully blank as he rested against the pillow, no thoughts of John abandoning him or what their future might hold. Just a pleasant warmth coursing under his skin and a lassitude in his limbs that made him feel wonderfully heavy.

After a minute, when he noted that all had gone quiet, he cracked an eye open to find John staring at him from the doorway.

“What?” He asked curiously.  

John let out a breath from his nose and smiled. “Just… you, I suppose.”

“What about me?”

His compact frame shifted away from the doorway and made its way over, crawling under the covers with Sherlock until they were snuggled up close again. When they were settled, John answered, “You looked so peaceful, I had to take it in for a bit is all.”

“I see,” Sherlock mumbled. “I feel peaceful. Thank you.”

A snort hit him in the chest. “No need to thank me. All in a day’s work.”

“Yes, you’re very selfless,” Sherlock responded. He thought about telling John about the moment of near panic, when he’d almost given in, but it had turned out all right in the end, and Sherlock felt confident that it wouldn’t happen again, or if it did that he could handle it.

John reared back. “Hey,” he prompted Sherlock to look at him, which he did. “ _You’re_ an idiot.”

Sherlock gave him a droll look. “Oh, I am?”

“Yes. You thought I was thinking about Laila when I was singing that damn song to you.”

Sherlock took a second to process what John referred to, rolling his eyes at John’s attempt to deny the facts. “I believe the lyrics were quite clear.”

John’s nose scrunched up adorably. “Are you really hung up on the pronouns? For Christ’s sake, ‘Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone, this house just ain’t no home.’ Who do I live with, Sherlock? C’mon, I thought you were a detective.”

He replayed the scene again, tried to see it with the new data given, but still came up empty. “But I wasn’t the one leaving constantly. _You_ were.”

John pinched him on the arm, which started a small battle of wills, distracting them from the argument for a short time. John eventually pinned Sherlock’s arms down and leveled a stare at him at that effectively kept him from complaining. He’d have to learn to circumvent that in the future, but until then he was stuck listening to John’s counter argument.

“Do you know what it was like for me? I didn’t know you were in pain, Sherlock, I just thought you’d grown tired of me already. You made me feel special, and then...nothing. You ignored me for days on end, got snappy with me over nothing, basically shut me out at every turn. It was awful, I just missed my friend. Sometimes I’d come home with a funny story from the cafe and I couldn’t wait to tell you but you’d be on the sofa or at the table or locked in your room and you wouldn’t respond. I didn’t,” he stopped to swallow, his grip on Sherlock’s arms loosening, “I didn’t know what to do.”

“John,” Sherlock breathed, unable to articulate how sorry he was, only able to pull him forward to squeeze him tight to his chest. “Is it better now? Are we okay?”

“Christ, yes. Obviously,” he mumbled from under Sherlock’s grasp. “I love you so much. I’m never letting you go now. Never.”

A small noise escaped Sherlock’s throat. It was too much, he’d die of this much happiness.

_He loves you, he loves you, he loves you._

“I love you too,” he managed after a moment of internal screaming.

He could feel John grin against his skin, a perfect impression of his matching happiness.

“I’m going to turn the light out and sleep,” John informed him. “Care to join me?”

“I’m not sure I could,” Sherlock admitted. His brain would surely be too busy going over the day’s events, filing, saving, taking them out to look at again. Not to mention planning for the future. He had to find some way to talk John out of joining the Army, or, barring that, offer favours to Mycroft to keep him from deployment. In all the excitement since the pub, Sherlock had forgotten all about Irene and her newly established cohort, the better class of criminal. Maybe there was something to that, something he could distract John with… Time would tell.

John leant over him as he was busy planning and shut the desk lamp off. When he settled again, he whispered to Sherlock in the darkness, “What if I sang you to sleep?”

That brought Sherlock out of his musings. “Would you?”

“I offered, didn’t I?”

“Mmm,” Sherlock hummed, settling down further, willing to give it a shot. “Let’s see if it works.”

And so it was, as Sherlock found himself relaxing into slumber, it was John’s quiet tenor lulling him to sleep.

_“When I wake up in the morning, love_

_And the sunlight hurts my eyes_

_And something without warning, love_

_Bears heavy on my mind_

__

_Then I look at you_

_And the world's alright with me_

_Just one look at you_

_And I know it's gonna be_

_A lovely day_

__

_Lovely day, lovely day, lovely day …”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all she wrote folks. For all you curious cats, there's a SMALL chance I could do a follow up to this story, I've got the bare bones of an idea, BUT I make no promises. I've got seven unfinished stories rn as it is, and several more ideas floating, so don't expect anything anytime soon.  
> For those not in the know, [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYi7uEvEEmk) is the song John is singing to Sherlock at the end there. It's another Bill Withers classic. In John's mind it makes up for the wrong pronoun fiasco in chapter five.  
> Here's a fun idea: Got a friend who said that hat was a bad idea even though it was so not a bad idea and what do they know? Rec this fic to them. That'll teach them to be unsupportive.  
> And as always, come say hi on [Tumblr](http://misa-nthropy.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank my amazingly loyal girl force, all of them really, for their patience and shared love of boys kissing and fucking each other up. It would all be pointless without them, and _you_ dear readers! I love you guys so much.  
>  Please tell me how I did, this is my first forray into Uni territory and I'm as skittish as a colt. Always indulge my praise kink if you liked what you read! <3  
> Feel free to drop me a line on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/artisanbloodbank) as well. I love to hear from readers!  
> If anyone is interested, [this](http://8tracks.com/ragazzaguasto/the-detective-and-his-blogger) is my Johnlock playlist on 8tracks. It gets me in the mood and I've named the chapters of this fic after my favorite Johnlock songs.


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